



U U N IJ \~y i i ^- 



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Glass 

Book ^g^S^ 




The Second Church in Boston 



Committee of publication. 

STEPHEN M. CROSBY. 
THOMAS VAN NESS. 
FRANCIS H. BROWN. 




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THE MATHER CHAIR 



THE SECOND CHURCH 
IN BOSTON 



Commemorati\)e ^crbices 

HELD ON THE COMPLETION OF 

TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS 
SINCE ITS FOUNDATION 



1649-I 899 



BOSTON 

PUBLISHED BY THE SOCIETY 
1900 



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Copyright^ igoo 
By the Standing Committee 

OF 

The Second Church in Boston. 



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CEORGE H. ELllS, PRINTER 
BOSTON 



INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 



In order most fitly to commemorate the series of events 
which have marked the organization, the continuance, and the 
present life of The Second Church in Boston, the Com- 
mittee appointed by the Standing Committee have made a 
permanent record of the services held on the 19th. and 20th. of 
November, 1899. The place which this Church has occupied in 
the history of Congregationalism, in education, in literature, 
and in public afifairs, the distinguished ministers who have 
occupied its pulpit, the vicissitudes through which it has 
passed, make its story most interesting. Upon the unanimous 
adoption of their plans by the Proprietors and members of 
the Society the Committee of Arrangements proceeded to 
carry them out in a manner which merited and received the 
cordial approval of all. The announcement of the programme 
at once called the attention not only of the immediate mem- 
bers of the Church, but of the many friends, former parish- 
ioners, and descendants of the old families, and, still more, of 
a numerous company who are ever interested in the ecclesi- 
astical and local history of the city. The exercises were held 
in the meeting-house, and were attentively listened to, at every 
session, by crowds which taxed the auditorium to its utmost 
limit. For assistance in bringing the occasion to a successful 
issue the Committee of Arrangements were indebted to many 
persons who, by their public services, their advice, and in other 
ways, took important parts. More than all, perhaps, did they 
recognize the continued and devoted loyalty of every member 
of the Parish, both man and woman, for the heartiest co-opera- 
tion in every way. 

Before entering on the formal account of the celebration of 
the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the 



VI INTRODUCTORY NOTE 

Church, it seems well briefly to outline its history and to recall 
the succession of its devoted ministers. In the same connec- 
tion it will be interesting to study the evolution of the music 
employed in its service, — a history which applies equally to 
the musical forms of other Congregational churches of the 
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. This gradual devel- 
opment was brought out in the Puritan service of Sunday 
evening, which is given elsewhere in this volume. For a 
faithful and intelligent search through the records, and the 
gathering of facts there and elsewhere, the committee are in- 
debted to Miss Mary Phillips Webster, of Cambridge. 

The beginning of the Church dates from 1649, only nineteen 
years after the first settlement of Boston, when Michael Powell 
and six others signed the Covenant, — a document remarkable 
for its absence of dogma and its emphasis of practical religion 
and true Christian spirit. 

The first preacher was the Rev. Samuel Mather, who, however, 
soon left for England. After inviting several other ministers, 
without success, the Church asked Mr. Powell to become their 
teacher. He was not permitted to serve them in that capacity, 
the all-powerful civil authorities interfering because he was 
" illiterate as to academical education. He might have talents 
and a fine spirit," they argued, " and still not be competent to 
instruct the educated, explain the Scriptures, and convince the 
unbelieving. ... If any exception should be made in the case 
of Mr. Powell, by reason of his peculiar gifts, it might establish 
a dangerous precedent." A remarkable letter addressed by 
Mr. Powell, to the " Governour and Magistrates " tells the 
story and at the same time reveals the character of the man 
who was most prominent in founding the Church and who, 
though not permitted to become its minister, was allowed to 
serve in the important position of Ruling Elder, where no doubt 
his " peculiar gifts " and gentle and noble spirit were a great 
influence in that little community whose members were striving 
" to walk together as a congregation and church of Christ, in 
all the ways of his worship, and of mutual love." 

The first settled pastor of the church was Rev. John Mayo, 






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of the Records of 

The Second Church in Boston 



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INTRODUCTORY NOTE Vll 

who served from 1655 to 1672,— a man of whom his colleague 
writes that he was " a blessing to his people, and that they two 

pastor and teacher — lived together in love and peace for the 

space of eleven years." 

This colleague was Increase Mather, who succeeded Mr. 
Mayo as pastor. For more than sixty years this remarkable 

man, " the most powerful individual force in America," and 

his no less celebrated son, Cotton Mather, occupied the pulpit 
of The Second Church, and under such leaders the Society 
could but grow and prosper and become a mighty centre of in- 
fluence in the community. 

Very marked was the interest which both the Mathers took 
in musical reform. Church music had sadly degenerated dur- 
ing the one hundred and fifty years which had elapsed since the 
English Calvinists, returning from their exile in Switzerland, 
had brought with them the Genevan Psalter, and had introduced 
into London the habit of singing Psalms in unison. The Eng- 
land of Elizabeth was a land of singers. What wonder, then, 
that the English people enjoyed taking part in the worship, 
"singing together with one voice," that they finally refused to 
tolerate the intricate anthems of the cathedral choirs, in which 
the people could not join, and that, when they got the upper 
hand, they pulled the organs to pieces and destroyed the part- 
books ; but because they did these things it is a mistake to 
suppose that the early Puritans were utterly unmusical. Intri- 
cate church music was to them papistical. It must be done 
away with, like the detested "white surplices." Outside the 
church they did not object to it as a means of recreation. In- 
deed, we find two such widely different men as John Milton and 
Oliver Cromwell alike in their love for this art. 

When the Puritans came to America, they brought the habit 
of psalm-singing with them ; and, if they had been content to 
use the words of Sternhold and Hopkins's version, all might 
have been well. But instead of this they made a version of 
their own, which, though more literal, was almost unsingable. 
Worse still, they adopted the custom advocated by the West- 
minster Assembly of "lining" the Psalm; that is, of having 



Vlll INTRODUCTORY NOTE 

each line read by an officer of the church before it was sung, — 
a practice originally made necessary by the scarcity of books, 
but kept up long after there was a plentiful supply. These 
two causes alone were enough to ruin the effect of the music 
and make the art disliked by those who had never known any- 
thing better; but when we add that the tunes were handed 
down by oral tradition, that no two churches sang them in the 
same way, that each individual singer was at liberty to put in 
extra turns and quavers, that there was no pretence of keeping 
time, and that the notes were often so prolonged as to require 
a pause to take breath, it is hard to imagine a worse state 
of things, musically speaking. Reform was imperative, and 
it was started by the ministers. In 1718 Cotton Mather, 
the colleague and successor of his father, published a new 
translation of the Psalms, called the " Psalterium Ameri- 
canum," in which, by an ingenious arrangement of different 
types and words in brackets to be omitted or retained at 
pleasure, the Psalms could be adapted to tunes of different 
metre. Three years later Thomas Walter, pastor of the church 
in Roxbury and grandson of Increase Mather, published a 
singing-book, which was recommended by Increase and Cotton 
Mather, and many other ministers, and was the first attempt 
at better music. The tunes were copied from Playford, and 
were in three parts without words. 

One of the rarest of the Cotton Mather tracts bears this 
title : — 

" The Accomplished Singer. | Instructions | How the Piety 
I of Singing | with a | True Devotion may be | obtained 
and expressed ; the Glor j ious God after an uncommon man- 
ner glorified in it, and His | people Codified. | Intended for 
the Assistance of all that would | sing Psalms with Grace in 
their Hearts ; | But more particularly to accompany the | 
Laudable Endeavours of those who are | Learning to sing by 
Rule. . . . Boston : Printed by B Green for S Gerrish, | . . . 
172 1. 16 mo, pp. (4), 24." 



INTRODUCTORY NOTE IX 

The first singing-school was started about 1720, and singing 
by note was thus introduced into the Boston churches, Dr. 
Colman's society in Brattle Square probably being the first to 
employ the new method. This innovation, or rather revolu- 
tion, was stoutly opposed by the advocates of " the usual way." 
Fiercely the battle of the singers raged,— the first of the many 
musical contests in Boston. The leading ministers arrayed 
themselves on the side of reform, many of them publishing 
"spirited discourses" on the subject. In 1723 appeared a 
tract entitled " Cases of Conscience about singing Psalms," in 
which, among other propositions for consideration, is the fol- 
lowing : " Whether they who purposely sing a tune different 
from that which is appointed by the pastor or elder to be sung 
are not guilty of acting disorderly and of taking God's name 
in vain, also by disturbing the order of the sanctuary." This 
tract shows the importance attached to the question, and the 
rude and even childish pettishness by which the Puritans of 
that day sometimes manifested their individuality and inde- 
pendence. 

Cotton Mather had the largest private library on the conti- 
nent,— a fact which must have been appreciated by his colleague 
and successor, the Rev. Joshua Gee, who was a brilliant, scholarly 
man, and which may have suggested to him the plan of found- 
ing a Church Library for the use of the ministers. We are 
able to give the details of this scheme in his own words, copied 
from his Register Book. 

Mr. Gee writes, " In a conversation with the late venerable 
Dr. Cotton Mather, sometime in the summer of the year 
MDCCXXVII., I proposed to him the forming a library for the 
Church under our Pastoral Care." He then gives in full a paper 
entitled " A Proposal for a Church Library," and after this the 
list of subscribers, headed by Dr. Mather, who, however, -died 
before this subscription was compleated." 

The Library thus started survived even the trying days of the 
Revolution. In 182 1, though many books had been lost, there 
remained 123 volumes, 50 of which were of small value. In 
1827, just a hundred years from the time when the plan for the 



X INTRODUCTORY NOTE 

library was first proposed, " at the request of Mr. Ware, who 
stated that efforts were making to build up a library for the 
Theological School at Cambridge ' to be deposited in the 
building recently erected,' the Church 'voted that the pastor 
be authorized to select such volumes as he may think proper 
from its Library, and make a donation of them to the Library of 
the Theological School, with the proviso that the minister of the 
Second Church shall always have free use of the library of the 
Theological School.' " 

Little need be said of Mr. Gee's colleagues, the Rev. Samuel 
Mather and the Rev. Samuel Checkley, the latter of whom suc- 
ceeded him as minister. Mr. Checkley was followed by Dr. 
John Lathrop, who served from 1768 to 18 16, during which 
time the church passed through many and momentous changes. 
Dr. Lathrop was a firm patriot, whose sermons did much to 
strengthen the people in resisting oppression and in gaining 
for them the reputation, from a British point of view, of being 
"a nest of hornets." The Second Church was among the 
heaviest sufferers by the war. The earliest mention of their 
trials at this period is found in the following brief notice, copied 
from the list of deaths in volume vii. of the church records : 
" Mch 5, 1770, James Caldwell, shot by the inhumane sol- 
diers." When the scattered congregation returned to the city 
after its evacuation by the British, they found their Meeting- 
House on North Square in ashes. In this crisis the New Brick 
society came to their aid. The New Brick Church, at the 
dedication of which Dr. Cotton Mather had said, " There is not 
in all the land a more beautiful house built for the worship of 
God than this," became their home, the two societies uniting 
permanently in 1779. 

Following Dr. Lathrop came, m 18 17, the Rev. Henry Ware, 
Jr., whose ministry lasted till 1830. His name is the synonym 
for saintliness wherever known ; and in him the cause of peace, 
of freedom, of temperance, of education, and of charity, found an 
earnest advocate and a diligent worker. Ralph Waldo Emer- 
son followed Mr. Ware in 1829, and continued a little over 
three years, — a period of great intellectual and spiritual en- 



INTRODUCTORY NOTE 



XI 



joyment and comfort to the people. In 1833 the Rev. Chandler 
Robbins was ordained, — a man of the purest Christian char- 
acter, of profound learning, a tender pastor, a respected mem- 
ber of the community, a learned and accurate historian, to 
whom, through his forty years of service, the Church was 
indebted for loyalty to its interests through many trying cir- 
cumstances. The Rev. Robert Laird Collier was installed in 
1876, and resigned in 1879. Then came the Rev. Edward A. 
Horton in 1880, followed by the Rev. Thomas Van Ness in 
1893, the last two ministers being still alive. 








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TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



PACB 

Introductory Note v 

^telimmatg procrrliings. 

Action of the Proprietors 3 

the Anniversary Committee 3 



<ttoinnumoratifae Snijtcta. 
Sen'ice of Sunday Morning, November 19, 1899. 

Programme ° 

Historical Sermon by Rev. Thomas Van Ness . . 9 

Address by Rev. Edward A. Horton 20 

Address by Wilmon W. Blackmar 29 

Unveiling of Memorial Gifts 20-32 

George H. Eager Window, — The Ministers' Me- 
morial; William Wilkins Warren Window, — 
Courage and Charity; John W. Leighton 
Mosaic,— Truth ; Frederic W. Lincoln Tablet. 

Acceptance of Memorial Gifts on Behalf of the 

Church by Stephen M. Crosby 33 

The Memorial of Ralph Waldo Emerson,— Sunday Afternoon. 

Programme 35 

Remarks by Miss Rebecca D. Homer 37 

Readings from Mr. Emerson's Writings .... 37 

Address by Walter P. Eaton 3^ 

Unveiling of the Bust by Miss Alice L. Higgins . 46 



XIV TABLE OF CONTENTS 



A Puritan Sennce, — Sunday Evening. 



PAGE 



Programme 48 

Psalms and Anthems from the Psalter and Hymn 
Books of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth 

Centuries 48 

Chorus from " Judas Maccab^eus " 54 

Address by Rev. Elvin J. Prescott, First Church, 

Salem, 1629 55 

Rev. James Eells, First Church, Boston, 1630 . 58 
Rev. Eugene R. Shippen, First Church, Dor- 
chester, 1630 65 

Rev. James De Normandie, D.D., First Church, 

RoxBURY, 1 63 1 71 

Rev. George A. Gordon, D.D., Third Church, 

Boston, 1669 77 



Sennce of Monday Morning, November 20. 

Programme 83 

Meeting of the Second Church Branch of the 

Women's National Alliance 83 

What Women have done in the United States since 
the Founding of The Second Church in Boston : 

In Literature, Mrs. Mary P. Wells Smith, 84 
Education, Mrs. Emily A. Fifield . . 100 
Philanthropy, Mrs. Kate Gannett 

Wells 116 

Theology, Rev. Anna Garlin Spencer . 129 



TABLE OF CONTENTS XV 
Monday Evefiing. 

I'AGB 

Programme 145 

The Influence of the Second Church in America, 145 
Opening Address by Stephen M. Crosby . . . 148 
On American Literature, Rev. P"ran'cis Green- 
wood Peabody, D.D 153 

In Religion, Rev. Edward Everett Hale, D.D., 164 

Mendelssohn's "Hymn of Praise" 145 



Sermon by Rev. Thomas Van Ness, November 26, 

1899 176 



^ppentiix. 

The Mather Chair 191 

The Mosaic-Truth 191 

The Ministers' Window 192 

The Warren Window 193 

The Lincoln Tablet 193 

The Emerson Bust 194 

The Robbins Tablet 194 

Paintings 195 

Flags and Decorations 196 

A Street in Old Boston 197 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



PAGE 

The Mather Chair iii 

The First Covenant vi 

Inscription on the Front of the Meeting-House . xi 
Memorial Windows, Etc, : 

The Ministers' Memorial 20 

Courage and Charity 22 

Truth 26 

Memorial Tablets : 

Frederic W, Lincoln 30 

Rev. Chandler Robbins, D.D 34 

The Emerson Bust 46 



PRELIMINARY PROCEEDINGS. 



PRELIMINARY PROCEEDINGS. 



AT the Annual Meeting of the Proprietors of The 
Second Church in Boston, held in May, 1898, 
attention having been called to the fact that the next 
year would mark the two hundred and fiftieth anniver- 
sary from the foundation of the Church, the following 
action was taken : — 

Voted, That a Committee of five be appointed by the 
Moderator of this meeting, with himself as one, to con- 
sider a plan and to fix the precise date for celebrating, in 
1899, the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of this 
Church, and to report the same at a future meeting of the 
Proprietors and members of the Society to be called by 
said Committee. 

At the Annual Meeting of the Proprietors in April, 
1899, the chairman announced the appointment of the fol- 
lowing persons to constitute this committee: the Rev. 
Thomas Van Ness, William M. Bunting, James N. North, 
Francis H. Brown, and Stephen M. Crosby. The Com- 
mittee reported that they had duly considered the matter, 
and had outlined a plan to submit to the Proprie- 
tors, which comprised a two days' celebration ; and they 
fixed as a convenient date for the event Sunday and 
Monday, the nineteenth and twentieth days of November, 
1899. This date was selected because the exact day of the 
organization of the Church is unknown. It has been deter- 
mined that the Church came together some time in 1649, 
and that the first Meeting-House, erected in North Square, 



4 THE SECOND CHURCH IN BOSTON 

was completed and in use in June, 1650. At a later 
day the Committee was increased by the appointment of 
Wilmon W. Blackmar, Charles H. Bond, and Lament G. 
Burnham. Still later the Minister's Auxiliary Committee 
was asked to take a part by caring for the financial 
matters. This Committee was composed of William M. 
Bunting, Chairman, Franklin F. Raymond, Secretary and 
Treasurer; Edmund T. Pratt, Charles H. Bond, Ephraim 
B. Stillings, Charles Darrow, Elmer A. Lord, Daniel H. 
Lane, Ralph M. Kendall, and Frank W. Downer. 
The following action was then taken : — 

Voted, by the Proprietors, That it is desirable to hold a 
service on the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the 
establishment of The Second Church in Boston, sub- 
stantially on the plan outlined and presented at this meet- 
ing, in commemoration of its foundation and continuance 
to the present day. 

Voted^ That the Committee who have had in charge the 
preliminary consideration of the subject of a celebration 
be authorized to make suitable arrangements and carry 
out such service as, in their judgment, may seem desirable. 

Voted, That they be authorized to expend such sums as 
may be placed in their hands for the purpose, and that it 
be discretionary with them to enlarge their committee, 
and to appoint subsidiary committees, as they may deem 
best. 

The programme, as recommended by the Committee, 
was also adopted by the Proprietors in the form in which 
it was finally carried out. 

Several members of the Parish expressed the wish to 
unite with the Church the names of members of their 
households, who had passed away, by the gift of valuable 
works of art. These proposals were gratefully accepted, 
and the reception of such memorials was assigned to the 
morning hours of the first day. 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 5 

With the same feelings of devotion the younger members 
of the parish wished to give the Church a memorial bust 
of Ralph Waldo Emerson, one of its early ministers ; and 
the reception of this gift was assigned to the afternoon. 

For the evening a Puritan service was proposed, in 
which, together with appreciative words from the minis- 
ters of five of the earliest churches of the Massachusetts 
Bay Colony, a musical service was to be held, which 
should mark the progress of the Art from the forms of 
the earliest days of the community down to those of the 
present. 

The morning of the second day was to be occupied by 
the Second Church Branch of the Women's National 
Alliance in the discussion of the topic " What women 
have done since the Founding of The Second Church." 

In the evening it was intended that addresses should 
be made by carefully chosen speakers on the subject 
" What The Second Church has done in this Community." 

The following sub-committees were appointed : — 

On Memorial Gifts and Decorations, Francis H. Brown, 
W. W. Blackmar; on Printing and the Press, W. M. 
Bunting, L. G. Burnham ; on Reception, J. N. North, 
W. M. Bunting; on Correspondence and Invitations, 
S. M. Crosby, L. G. Burnham ; on Music, Thomas Van 
Ness, J. N. North, C. H. Bond. 

The musical part of the Commemorative Services was 
under the care of the conductor and musical director of 
the Church, Mr. H. G. Tucker, to whose skill and untiring 
devotion the Committee were indebted for the entire 
success of this portion of the celebration. He was ably 
seconded by the choir of the church : Mrs. Marian Titus, 
soprano, Mrs. Louise Bruce Brooks, contralto, Bruce W. 
Hobbs, tenor, Wirt B. Phillips, bass. 



COMMEMORATIVE SERVICE. 



COMMEMORATIVE SERVICE. 



THE Morning Service on the 19th, of November 
was opened by a voluntary on the organ. The 
First Service in the Book of Worship was used at this 
morning exercise, and the following programme fol- 
lowed : — 

J^istortcal Sermon Rev. Thomas Van Ness. 

^tititESS Rev. Edward A. Horton. 

Sttiress WiLMON W. Blackmar. 

Unbeiling of Mtmaxml ©tfts 

In memory of (a) George H. Eager, (Window) " Ministers' 
Memorial." 
(d) William Wilkins Warren, (Window) " Courage and 

Charity." 
(c) John W. Leighton, (Mosaic) "Truth." 
(rt?) Frederic W. Lincoln, Corinthian Tablet. 

3lcc£ptance of ilHetnoiial (Sifts .... Stephen M. Crosby. 



HISTORICAL SERMON. 

BY THE REV. THOMAS VAN NESS. 
" These all having obtained a good report." — Heb. xi. 39. 

I CAN appreciate somewhat Paul's feelings when 
he sat down to write an historical letter to his 
kinsmen, which should so speak to them of their 
past that by the recollection of the glorious deed 
of Hebrew prophets, statesmen, and citizens their 
own faith would be increased and their own courage 
sustained. How select? What emphasize ? What 
omit? A multitude of faces, forms, and events, 
crowd before his imagination, each asking, demand- 
ing, that it be marked off as of special importance. 
Palestine was a small country, the Jewish people, 
in comparison with their neighbors, a feeble folk ; 
yet no Assyrian, Roman, or Persian historian had 
such a wealth of material from which to draw, so 
many inspiring personalities about whom to write. 
Paul first lays down his definition of faith, " The 
evidence of things unseen." Then, step by step, he 
passes on to prove his statement, putting before the 
mind's eye such a stately procession as the world 
has never known. Abraham emerges from the 
past, then the patriarchs, Isaac and Jacob, then 
from Sinai's awful heights descends the great law- 
giver. Back of him is seen Joseph, the boy, and 
Joseph, the man, who, through rectitude and pu- 



lO THE SECOND CHURCH IN BOSTON 

rity, is raised to the power of a Pharaoh ; then Noah ; 
then Joshua. So the record sweeps on, becoming 
more dramatic as it proceeds, until it begins to be 
impossible longer to single out individual instances. 
Then Paul in his thought gathers together all the 
past generations, saying of them, " Through faith 
they subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, 
quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of 
the sword ; out of weakness were made strong, 
waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies 
of the aliens. They had trials of cruel mockings 
and scourgings, of bonds and inprisonment. They 
were tempted, slain with the sword. Destitute, 
afflicted, tormented, they wandered in deserts and 
mountains, in dens and caves of the earth. All 
these obtained a good report, for they endured as 
seeing the invisible." 

Almost in Paul's words I might sum up the gen- 
erations that have lived and died in the past two 
hundred and fifty years, and who, by their faithful- 
ness and loyalty, have made this Second Church in 
Boston what it is to-day. Back and beyond you this 
morning, you who are to be seen with the actual 
eye, are those nameless hundreds, those uncounted 
thousands, wives, husbands, fathers, mothers, grand- 
fathers, great-grandfathers, who are thronging for- 
ward for recognition ; loved ones who have recently 
passed from earth ; and not far from them older 
parishioners who saw and knew Sumner, Andrew, 
Webster, and Lafayette, and those, too, who were 
on speaking terms with Parker, Motley, Channing, 
Howe, and Longfellow. Then, back of them, those 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY I I 

whose garb and manner are strangely unfamiliar, 
those who helped make constitutional history, who 
because they had freemen's blood in their veins 
sympathized with and helped forward the struggle 
for liberty, — friends of Otis, of John Adams, of Paul 
Revere, men who pledged their lives, their fortunes, 
and their sacred honor to a loved cause ; for they 
esteemed the reproach for liberty's sake greater 
riches than the pleasures to be enjoyed under a 
king's tyranny. Still back of them, the men and 
women who slowly, toilfully, worked to build up the 
old town of Boston, who Sunday after Sunday, 
through sunshine and rain, through snow and 
storm, wended their way to the Old North Meeting 
House, and there in the stern lessons taught from 
the pulpit obtained a reason for their own lives 
and a warning against cowardice, sloth, and unfaith- 
fulness. 

Yes, faith is the evidence of things unseen ; and 
it was because those of whom I speak had such 
faith that they endured as seeing the invisible. 
It was because they had such faith that they believed 
God's kingdom could be founded upon earth, and 
that they were the divinely chosen instruments to 
establish that kingdom. 

Certain historians, who look at things purely 
from the outside, say that The Second Church was 
established because the seating capacity of the 
First Church had been outgrown: others affirm it 
was founded when the news reached Massachusetts 
of the execution of Charles I. and the setting up of 
Cromwell's commonwealth ; but these are extrane- 



12 THE SECOND CHURCH IN BOSTON 

ous reasons. They fall into place as coincidences, 
not as cause. 

" Being called of God to enter into church fellow- 
ship together." 

There you have the cause in the first covenant 
of this church. Michael Powell, James Ashwood, 
Christopher Gibson, and their four friends actually 
believed themselves " called of God " to do this 
thing as much as did ever Abraham when he went 
forth from Chaldea to establish the worship of God 
among the Canaanites. 

" We here freely this day," so the covenant goes 
on to declare, " do avouch the Lord to be our God 
and ourselves to be his people," and " to cleave 
to him and to one another in him." 

It is not compulsion, you see. No presbytery, 
synod, bishop, or pope, demands that a Second 
Church be started in the little colony. No ! it is a 
layman's movement, a people's church, a demo- 
cratic organization. The stamp once placed upon 
it by those seven Puritan founders, every year that 
follows only makes deeper, more indelible that 
impression. " We here freely this day do this 
thing." Those words fitly express what was true 
the Sunday after the church was founded ; and the 
next Sunday and the next Sunday and every Sun- 
day even unto this day. 

Is it any wonder that a church so founded should 
always stand for political liberty, for intellectual lib- 
erty, for social fellowship, for religious democracy ? 
" Everything produces after its kind," says the 
author of Genesis. It does not, therefore, take an 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 1 3 

uncommon prophet to predict that such an organi- 
zation, such a church, will be found on the side of 
learning over against superstition ; will be found to 
uphold the spiritual interpretation of the Lord's 
Scriptures rather than the formal and literal inter- 
pretation ; will be found on the side of the people 
rather than on the side of the king ; will join forces 
with the patriots and not with the Tories ; will up- 
hold the cause of union and a united republic, and 
not the cause of disunion and secession ; and 
through its sons and daughters, whether known or 
unknown, whether occupying the executive chair 
of this great city or speaking only from the centre 
of the domestic circle, whether instructing youth 
from a Harvard professor's desk or simply instruct- 
ing the child at home, will always throw its influ- 
ence on the side of freedom, progress, justice, and 
security for all. 

I am not, therefore, surprised, as I turn one by 
one the pages of the history of The Second Church, 
to read what I there find. I am not surprised to 
learn that as early as 1774 Lathrop, from this pul- 
pit, said, " Americans, rather than submit to be 
hewers of wood or drawers of water for any nation 
in the world, would spill their best blood " ; nor does 
it seem strange that the British general, in speaking 
of The Second Church, should call it " a nest of 
traitors." I should have been much more surprised 
if I had not so learned, or if I had read that the 
pastor of The Second Church was given a vote of 
thanks by the British ministry because of his sub- 
serviency and the cowardly acquiescence of his 



14 THE SECOND CHURCH IN BOSTON 

flock in all the unjust measures of Lord North. I 
should have been disappointed and chagrined if 
that layman whose memory we are soon about to 
honor had flinched or wavered in the right course 
when the destinies of Boston hung upon his execu- 
tive action in those dark days of 1863 and 1864. 

No ; now and again there has been an arrest of 
movement, a hardening of form and tradition, a 
something almost like a stultification of that origi- 
nal Second Church covenant ; but, whenever such 
has been the case, there have arisen some laymen 
or some coterie of the members, or some minister, 
like him whom we shall recall and honor this after- 
noon, who by a brave word against creed or by a 
courageous sermon against the tyranny of tradition 
has brought the Second Church back to its right- 
ful position in the path of progress. 

It is the spirit, the life force of a church about 
which we are anxious to know, not the particular 
forms that spirit has taken on. It is for that rea- 
son I have so far said nothing of the outward and 
visible sign of the church as a structure, as a build- 
ing. Let me now say, merely as a matter of rec- 
ord, that the first meeting-house was at the head of 
North Square. It was built of wood and completed 
in 1650. It remained in continuous use until the 
fire of 1676 destroyed it. Then, with commendable 
zeal on the part of the people, a new building was 
erected ; and this second building was the one de- 
stroyed by the British in 1775. 

After the evacuation of Boston, when the mem- 
bers of The Second Church returned to their homes, 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 1 5 

they found in the place of their loved sanctuary a 
heap of ruins. In their disappointment and dis- 
tress they were invited to worship with the 
Society of the New Brick on Hanover Street. 
The New Brick Society was an offshoot through 
the New North of The Second Church. In a sense, 
therefore, it was a union of parts. Dr. Lathrop as- 
sumed charge of the reunited organization in 1779, 
continuing in the ministry almost exactly fifty years. 
He died January 14, 18 16, deservedly beloved and 
honored. 

The following year Henry Ware, Junior, was in- 
stalled as pastor. Perhaps his best known work 
for the community is his temperance work. In an 
age when drinking was a universal habit, it 
needed moral courage to stand out so boldly, and 
champion an unpopular cause. How new and 
startling were his words on this subject may be 
judged from the fact that his " Discourse on Tem- 
perance," put on sale in this country, had a most 
extensive circulation ; and the twelfth thousand was 
prepared to meet the demands in London. There 
are persons still living who remember the funeral 
services at Harvard University held over the body 
of Mr. Ware in 1843. Some time in 1829 the Col- 
lege had elected him to the chair of pulpit elo- 
quence and pastoral care, though he did not enter 
at once upon his professional duties, but spent the 
best part of a year travelling through Europe, giv- 
ing the care of his pulpit into the hands of Emer- 
son, who in March of 1S29 had been installed as 
Mr Ware's colleague. 



1 6 THE SECOND CHURCH IN BOSTON 

Although the ministry of Ralph Waldo Emerson 
did not cover the full space of four years, yet the 
time was long enough for the people to discover 
his clear discernment of truth, subtlety of reason- 
ing, and candor of speech, which in after life gave 
him world-wide fame. It was under the Rev. 
Chandler Robbins, Mr. Emerson's successor, that 
the resolution was formed to erect a new church 
edifice on the old site. 

While the work of rebuilding was in progress, 
the society availed itself of an invitation to worship 
under the roof of the Old South. In courteous 
recognition of the hospitality extended to it at the 
time The Second Church presented to the Old 
South a silver cup, which appears upon its com- 
munion table, and which bears this inscription : — 

THE OLD SOUTH CHURCH, 

IN MEMORY OF HER 

CHRISTIAN HOSPITALITY 

TO THE 

SECOND CHURCH, 

1844. 

The new church building was completed and 
dedicated in 1845. There are many still living 
who remember the services of dedication, — remem- 
ber, too, the sad, the disheartening years that 
follow. 

It will not do for us to judge those times, to say 
that a grave mistake was made in erecting so ex- 
pensive a building in a part of the city from which 
The Second Church families were steadily moving. 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY I 7 

I do not know. I only know the outcome. In 
1849 the church had to be sold to another relig- 
ious society ; and its members were forced to find 
a new home in the Freeman Place Chapel, which 
stands to-day in the rear of Hotel Bellevue on Bea- 
con Street. In 1854, by a happy union with the 
Church of the Saviour, the able and beloved minis- 
ter of The Second Church found himself once more 
the pastor of a strong and united band of worship- 
pers ; and for something like eighteen years the 
Rev. Chandler Robbins faithfully served as minister 
in the Bedford Street building. Then once again 
came the need of change. The Bedford Street 
Church was carefully taken down, its stones brought 
here to Copley Square, and the present building be- 
gun. As near as two buildings can be one, it may 
be said that this structure is the Bedford Street 
Church ; for the very stained glass windows, the 
pews, the pulpit, even the organ, and much of the 
interior furnishings in this church on the dedica- 
tion day, September 17, 1874, were those of the 
former church edifice. 

And now, if we desire to take a typical period, 
an action, a form, or symbol which shall best epito- 
mize the spirit continuously animating this Second 
Church, what shall be selected ? What better than 
an event which in itself shows supremely the love 
of liberty in the people's hearts and at the same 
time the moral courage of their minister? What 
more comprehensive than that moment when the 
independence of the little colony weighs in the bal- 
ance over against the desire of a king } Here are 



l8 THE SECOND CHURCH IN BOSTON 

the royal commissioners, backed up by military 
force, demanding, in the name of Charles II., the 
surrender of the charter : here, on the other hand, 
are the deputies to the General Court, about to be 
instructed as to their vote. What is to be the out- 
come ? The minister of the Second Church, the 
Rev. Increase Mather, pushes his way to the 
crowded Town Hall, and makes a speech which 
electrifies all who hear it. " I hope," he says, 
" there is not a free man in Boston that can be 
guilty of such a thing. We shall sin against the 
God of heaven if we do this thing." 

When Mather sat down, and the vote of the 
meeting was taken, it was unanimous against sub- 
mitting to the king. 

When I first came to Boston some seven years 
ago, a quiet, cultured gentleman, a member of our 
Standing Committee, called my attention particu- 
larly to the work of the Mathers, Increase and Cot- 
ton. " It was a magnificent epoch in our history," 
he said, " and some time or other a commemorative 
inscription or tablet should bear witness to what 
father and son did for Massachusetts and for The 
Second Church." In our further talks about the 
Mathers he made not only their characters better 
known and appreciated by me, but unconsciously 
his own as well. Would that he were here now to 
look upon this window, which so fitly carries out 
his thought and with such dignity and beauty 
teaches the lesson of moral courage and fidelity to 
civic duty ! 

When Paul sat down to write that eleventh 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 1 9 

chapter of Hebrews, the furthest thing from his 
mind was the idea of self-glorification or personal 
fame. In him there was burning a desire to make 
better known to his kindred the great and good of 
the past, through whom the Lord had wrought 
great glory. Yet such is the law of virtue that 
while he, who will glorify himself, shall be forgot- 
ten, yet he who for righteousness' sake is willing 
to be debased and held in small esteem shall live 
in men's hearts forever and ever. Therefore it is 
that, try as Paul will, the eleventh chapter of 
Hebrews commemorates not Barak or Samson or 
Jephthah or any of the others whom the apostle 
sought to wrest from oblivion, but commemorates 
Paul himself. So, too, though the name be hidden 
in an obscure line, though the blaze of sunshine 
fall on the face of Increase Mather, though in 
strong, bold letters the list of ministers be written 
so that all may read, yet, nevertheless, the law of 
virtue cannot thus be evaded ; and he who rightly 
and fitly is brought to remembrance by this window 
is he who so unselfishly and modestly labored to 
bring others to our mind — none other than our 
loved, our revered friend, George H. Eager. 

" Though a good life hath but few days, yet a 
good name endureth forever." So it is written in 
the very nature of things. 

Mother, daughter, you who through your devo- 
tion have made this window to the memory of the 
ministers a reality, believe me, it is like a palimpsest 
of old, which bears upon its surface not only the 
message in view, but as well the message of a sim- 



20 THE SECOND CHURCH IN BOSTON 

pie, lofty life, quietly and honorably lived, and leav- 
ing to you as the most priceless heritage a name 
kept forever unspotted from the world. 

Seeing we are compassed about with such a cloud 
of witnesses, let us run with patience the race that 
is set before us. And let us not be weary in well- 
doing ; for in due season we shall reap, if we faint 
not, until we all come to the unity of faith, unto the 
perfect man, unto the measure of the fulness of the 
stature of Christ. 



ADDRESS. 

BY THE REV. EDWARD A. HORTON. 

A REASONABLE question may arise in our 
-^^ minds. The Second Church in Boston is 
commemorating to-day its two hundred and fiftieth 
anniversary. Back at the beginning stands the 
serious-faced figure of the Puritan. Before he left 
England, he and his allies assailed the churches and 
broke the frescoed windows. In the wrath of the 
white heat of his reforming spirit he smote for God, 
for progress, for man, according to his light and 
with the heavy accent of his moral conviction. Do 
we wisely to-day establish memorials somewhat of 
the character that were destroyed when The Second 
Church was founded ? Ay, truly ; for the great 
trait in the Puritans was the possibility of growth. 
I believe that the Puritan of two hundred and fifty 
years ago would be glad to witness the scene of 




THE MINISTERS' WINl 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 2 1 

to-day. This is our way now of ennobling and lift- 
ing higher the benefits and truths of organized 
religion. To the Puritan in his time destruction, 
deprivation, and concentrating one's gaze upon the 
essentials of religious faith and doctrine seemed 
the great duty. Were he living now, his method of 
religious progress would be enrichment and beauty. 

It is a personal privilege and responsibility as 
well as a public duty to make mention here to-day 
of two gifts to this ancient society. When I came 
to Boston in 1880, wondering what the future had 
in store for me, so bold as to assay that which had 
been planned for me, my heart was strengthened 
and my mind guided greatly by valorous men who 
pledged themselves generously to stand by their 
chosen leader. The two tributes which have been 
offered this morning find sympathetic echo in my 
soul. I see George H. Eager here to-day. I feel 
the tender influence of his gentle yet firm charac- 
ter : he was patient and wise. I behold the familiar 
presence of Mr. Lincoln, — sagacious, loyal, public- 
spirited, — a man knowing clearly that, when you 
have summed up all the glories of modern civiliza- 
tion and have omitted the religious element, you 
have left a fatal defect. To all this tribute my 
mind gives hearty response. 

And now we pay attention, loving and true, to 
the memories of two more loyal sons of The Second 
Church. 

Upon my right is a piece of art, — the flower of 
consummate art and deathless love. The figure of 
Saint Martin may not represent to you — that is, 



22 THE SECOND CHURCH IN BOSTON 

to most of you — a familiar figure. Born in the 
fourth century near the Danube, his parents were, 
as we term them, ignorant heathen. But, early, his 
soul responded to the missionary call. He was 
converted ; and, from that pledge of allegiance to 
the Christ and the gospel so early given, he ran a 
bright and victorious career, far outstripping his 
father so famous in martial renown. 

The scene represented in this window is that of 
an actual event which has come down the centuries 
as a part of true history. A youth went to Saint 
Martin poor and forlorn, naked and in need. He 
listened to the tale: he was moved to sympathy; 
and, taking his sword, he cut in two his mantle, and 
gave the youth one-half. This is the picture as it 
appears. Yet I wish to recall (and let the fact 
shine out henceforth and forever from the window 
to those who may hereafter see it) that our man of 
valor was a soul of breadth. He became a bishop 
of France, and never feared to accept his responsi- 
bilities. When heretics were pursued and burned, 
he went to the other bishops, and begged that these 
offenders might be given to him. He hoped in his 
truly Catholic and Christian keeping he might help 
them, and by gently reproving them of their errors 
win them to the fold. His request was denied. 
The heretics were killed by the sword and fagot. I 
like to think how that act of Saint Martin redounds, 
not simply to his memory, — to his glory, but it is 
the type of broad, inclusive souls from century to 
century. 

The other figure in this particular window 




THE "WARREN WINDOW 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 23 

emerges through the mist of uncertainty, — Dorcas, 
— a name that embodies to us in this century the 
substance of good will, charity, and kindliness. The 
affluent, loving helpfulness of the Dorcas societies 
has gone out through the land. 

All women have been kindled by that little rec- 
ord in acts of the woman named Dorcas, whose 
memories brought tears to her associates. That 
passage has kindled many a candle to cast its 
beams of compassion round the world. Dorcas, the 
example of charity, of loving heart, of sympathetic 
atmosphere, of hand that does not dole out bene- 
factions, but clasps the object of attention with a 
thrill of sisterly recognition, — Dorcas is the second 
figure. 

Now what significance has this window with 
reference to him whom we to-day remember, the 
source, the incentive, the motive, of this gift, — Will- 
iam Wilkins Warren ? Much, very much. 

Mr. Warren has not been from us so Ions: but 
that many in these pews this morning have felt the 
throb of joy as they recall the friendship they had 
for him. William Wilkins Warren was a man 
with special privileges. The good Lord put a 
scope of opportunity about him, and he recog- 
nized it. He knew he was a steward; and phil- 
anthropy unloosed his purse, broadened his heart, 
led him to generous plans. But that window 
does not simply mean courage and charity. A 
brute can be courageous. Saint Martin had 
enthusiasm for humanity, a consecrated purpose. 
Mr. Warren took unto himself these ideas and 



24 THE SECOND CHURCH IN BOSTON 

tendencies, and embodied them in his Hfe. For 
that reason we place a memorial here, as some- 
thing not only betokening love, but quality of 
judgment. 

I need not recall, in a presence like this, the 
characteristics which made Mr. Warren the source 
of true eulogy when he passed away. He was a 
lover of those refinements of life which we call 
civilization. Across this square, at the Art Museum, 
there is placed that gift from him which will enable 
the walls, for a long time to come, to bear testimony 
to canvas blossoming into beauty and stones setting 
forth incarnate life. I believe, if he could look 
down, he would rejoice at a testimonial like this. 
Did I say Saint Martin was conspicuously broad 
and inclusive } So was our friend. He loved 
to see the good in other churches. He fellow- 
shipped with men and women who had high aims 
and motives, and allowed no mental differences and 
doctrinal divergences to interfere with his sense 
of brotherhood and large fellowship. 

The flag of our country kindled in him respon- 
sive loyalty and plaudits. He had traversed this 
earth along many pathways, familiar and unfamiliar ; 
but amid all this variety of experience he never 
became dulled to home appreciations. He was 
compact to the last in honor to his native land and 
firm in his confidence as to its future. He main- 
tained respect for the ordinary, typical citizen, and 
declared adhesion to the ideals of this republic. 
Back from these wanderings and observances he 
came to the ballot box of the people, the civic 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 25 

kings, back to the circles of scholarship, without 
any superciliousness or affected superiority. Nay, 
with a heart full of love, genuine love, of the 
American life, the American spirit, and the Amer- 
ican opportunities, which are being worked up con- 
stantly into higher types. 

He was, finally, religious : he embodied Christian- 
ity in his daily life. He listened to the Sermon on 
the Mount. He believed in organized religion and 
the support of churches. A more faithful parish- 
ioner I never had. The stream of his daily testi- 
mony was full of the richness which comforts the 
minister and steadies him for the contest in the 
many vicissitudes of life. 

Let that window, in all its beauty, stand not 
only for the figures, historic and religious, so finely 
portrayed there, but because we seem to see within 
the light of them, absorbing their radiance and 
giving it out as he did in his life, our beloved 
William Wilkins Warren, — not dead, for he yet 
speaketh. 

After the singing of the anthem, " My Soul doth 
magnify," and an organ postlude, during which the mosaic 
tablet behind the pulpit was unveiled, Mr. Horton con- 
tinued : — 

You have all, friends, had a brief glimpse, and 
seen the beauty and penetrated somewhat the 
significance of this memorial tablet in mosaic 
above the pulpit. It represents Truth. But 
truth comes to us in different aspects, and the 
successful artist has recognized that fact. Here is 



26 THE SECOND CHURCH IN BOSTON 

Truth, with the key : science understands that 
interpretation. The theologian catches the mean- 
ing issuing from that symbol, — to probe, to knock 
at doors that seem solid, to soar upward to the 
heights of the sky or downward into the depths of 
the geologic world. Science has unlocked many a 
door, and that has come about because in man 
God has planted the irrepressible and onward-urg- 
ing love of truth. 

There is a sword, too, which in Scripture hath 
somewhat been symbolized by Saint Paul, — the 
sword of the spirit ; not the cleaver and hewer of the 
battlefield, but the sword of an indomitable pur- 
pose, which in youth responds to a call from the 
high heavens, is determined to make character, 
help lift up the world, and keep an untarnished 
record of ideal loyalty. The sword represents the 
practical embodiment of truth in laws, institutions, 
character, in whatsoever perpetuates itself genera- 
tion after generation, though the thinker, the scholar, 
the scientist, the theologian, come and go. 

Then there is the flaming emblem, the torch. 
That is significant of truth's illuminating power. 
What is it that we should fear most in this world ? 
Ignorance, darkness, superstition ! Truth is the 
gas-jet in the bank at night, more potent than many 
policemen. The torch of truth is handed from 
generation to generation, enlightening religion, 
politics, and literature. Let the spirit indicated 
sustain this pulpit in finding and translating eter- 
nal life, appealing to all noble springs and high 
motives. That should be the universality of a 
pulpit like this, over which our memorial is placed. 




•fiyln^flf KHMly ■ 'lff'">y .'t/HMtltl,/ .'jrrfl/l/lny <*> 



Ti 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 2'] 

In memory of whom is the tablet placed here ? 
In remembrance of my friend and yours, — my loyal, 
sturdy parishioner, John W. Leighton. It is very 
fitting that a tablet of this significance should be 
placed to his memory. If there was one thing 
he liked, it was daylight, clearness, frankness, 
outspoken sentiment. He preferred substance to 
form ; action rather than profession. The love 
of truth that leads to many manifestations some- 
times savors of impetuosity and rashness, of things 
not always altogether agreeable. I would like to 
find a reformer, for instance, that you would call a 
courtier in the parlor or banquet hall. What the 
world needs is nuggets of gold, which can be made 
up into ordinary usage, into things which are avail- 
able. The love of truth gives strength, — sometimes 
rugged, granite power ; but it is strength, it is never 
weakness. Men may like what I say or they may 
not like it. They may fancy the utterances of the 
outspoken man or not : but there is one thing they 
can never say of the man who keeps true to the 
conviction of his mind : they cannot assert that he 
is mean, that he is equivocal, that he manages men 
with hypocrisy. I would rather have that charac- 
ter of mind than the ability of those who deftly 
thread the devious intricacies of insincere diplo- 
macy. 

Mr. Leighton was independent, self-reliant. He 
was honest. He had the treasure-house of in- 
tegrity: men could rely on his word. And, as he 
passes awav, we think of the essential man. That is 
the tribute which 1 know he would crave, simply 



28 THE SECOND CHURCH IN BOSTON 

that he was honest, trusty, and true. I cannot con- 
ceive of my friend Leighton caring for a tribute 
of this kind, simply as a formal and ecclesiastical 
matter. I knew him thoroughly, and I am disposed 
to speak right to the mark ; but I do believe that it 
would rejoice his soul, could he see this gathering 
and this tablet, and realize that such a typical 
representation of truth, sincerity, earnestness, gen- 
uineness, was placed in the church where he loved 
to attend, — as his friend Warren did, — anxious for 
any message that would quicken to true life ; no 
one more appreciative of the direct utterance of 
man to man. He believed in everything that might 
build up the character, and rejoiced in the prosper- 
ity of the church. He gave his money, his time, 
his advice, for the welfare of this time-honored 
society. 

And now, turning back to the memorial window, 
it is my precious privilege to speak through old 
friendship, and to say that this window is given by 
the wife of Mr. Warren. She does not need any 
visible presentation to remind her of the more than 
fifty years of happy life they had together ; but she 
shares his spirit, and they together, as it were, set 
this beautiful significant work of art in the walls of 
The Second Church, for the good of youth, for the 
help of pure worship, and for the hallowing of these 
sacred courts. 

This mosaic tablet is given by the wife and 
daughter of Mr. Leighton, in the same grand, loyal 
spirit to the family and to the church. They have 
all done this, not from any personal pride or satis- 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 29 

faction, but that here, as congregations come and 
go, this emblem may help the preacher carry his 
message to the people, enrich and round out the 
spirit of devotion ; appealing, amid service and 
sermon, to deep things, and enforcing by rich sym- 
bolic loveliness the truths of religion. 

So may these symbols quicken all that is good 
and noble for centuries within the courts of The 
Second Church in Boston. 



ADDRESS. 

BY WILMON W. BLACKMAR. 

A S we assemble here at the close of this the 
nineteenth century to celebrate the two hun- 
dred and fiftieth anniversary of the foundation of 
this church, and look back through the long vista 
of years, recalling with pride and thankfulness the 
names of the illustrious laymen who have been 
connected with it, we must in justice and in truth 
place prominently in the foremost rank of these the 
name of Frederic Walker Lincoln. 

No wonder he was patriotic, public-spirited, and 
devoted to all good causes tending to elevate and 
benefit his fellow-men ; for in his veins ran the 
blood of those glorious men who carved from a 
mighty wilderness the great republic which, as the 
peer of any nation in the world, is our proud inheri- 
tance to-day. 

With Abraham Lincoln, our martyred President, 



30 THE SECOND CHURCH IN BOSTON 

he traced his lineage to the Lincolns who settled 
in Hingham about 1637. His grandfather, Captain 
Amos Lincoln, when a youth of nineteen, took 
sides with the colonists against the aggressions of 
the mother country, and was one of the famous 
Boston Tea Party which emptied the cargoes of 
the offending ships into the harbor; and, standing 
firmly by the consequences resulting from this and 
other defiant acts of the inhabitants of rebellious 
Boston, he enlisted in the patriot army, and on the 
battlefield of Bunker Hill and on many another 
field made sacred by the blood of free men he 
fought for independence. After this was won, he 
returned to the pursuits of peace, and, as one of 
the leading mechanics of the city, helped to build 
yonder State House. 

Captain Lincoln married the daughter of Paul 
Revere, and therefore our late associate was the 
great-grandson of that famous patriot. 

True to his glorious lineage, he gave himself 
freely and unselfishly with a rare public-spirited 
devotion to so many good causes and institutions 
in his State and city that a mere recital by me 
of the names and descriptions of those with 
which he was identified and the offices he held 
during his long and most active life would con- 
sume most of the time allowed me to-day. 

I need not say in this presence, to you who 
knew him so well and loved him so tenderly, how 
honest, patriotic, unselfish, devoted, and capable he 
was. His long and honorable service in political, 
financial, charitable, and religious organizations is 




THE LINCOLN TABLET 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 3 1 

a guaranty that he possessed these sterling quali- 
ties in the highest degree. 

Whether as mayor, president of a bank organized 
to protect the savings of the wage-earners, or over- 
seer of the city's poor, he did his varied duties 
thoroughly and well. A manly man, with the deli- 
cacy and tenderness of a gentle woman, he admin- 
istered charity to the worthy poor ; but with a hand 
of iron, when mayor of Boston, he crushed out the 
draft riot which threatened destruction and dis- 
grace to his beloved city. For this patriotic action 
he was made a member of the Military Order of the 
Loyal Legion, which organization, with its colors 
draped, appeared as mourners at his bier. 

We remember with pride and satisfaction his 
great service to the State in her halls of legislation, 
on her important boards and commissions ; his 
devotion to our city during his unprecedented 
seven full years of service as its mayor; and his 
honorable connection with the great financial and 
charitable institutions with which his name has, 
from his early manhood, been so prominently as- 
sociated. 

But here in the church he loved, and as a member 
and officer served so faithfully, we remember him 
with a peculiar sense of gratitude, love, and admi- 
ration. Baptized in and buried from this church ; 
as child and man, for more than eighty years closely 
identified with its every interest ; for thirty years 
superintendent of its Sunday-school ; for forty-four 
years a member of its Standing Committee and 
its faithful treasurer; in prosperity and adversity 



32 THE SECOND CHURCH IN BOSTON 

always the same faithful, hopeful, patient guardian 
of its interests ; — pastors came and went ; death and 
other causes radically and often changed the con- 
gregations, — but, ever faithful at his post, during all 
these years stood Frederic Walker Lincoln ; and to 
him more than to any other one man is due the 
fact that the dear old Second Church in Boston 
has survived to celebrate this its two hundred and 
fiftieth anniversary. 

In the name and at the request of his wife and 
children I have the honor to present this memorial 
of Frederic Walker Lincoln to The Second Church 
in Boston. And, as the signal lights shone forth 
from the Old North Church to start his great 
grandsire, Paul Revere, on his perilous ride to 
warn of danger and encourage to heroic action his 
fellow-countrymen, so may this tablet with its mod- 
est but complete recital of a life well spent in ser- 
vice to this city and State be always an ever-living 
signal light in this church, to start our youth upon 
and encourage them to follow those glorious paths 
which lead to the freeing, uplifting, and helping of 
their fellow-men. 



TWO HUNDRED AND KIKTIETH ANNIVERSARY 33 



THE ACCEPTANCE OF THE MEMO- 
RIAL GIFTS. 

BY STEPHEN M. CROSBY. 

A ND now, friends, there remains only for me, as 
^ ^ the senior ofificer of the Church, and in the 
same spirit of love and tenderness, and with the 
most hearty concurrence in all that has been said 
in memory of our departed friends, to accept in the 
name and behalf of The Second Church in Boston 
these beautiful gifts. They become henceforth a 
part of the heritage of this church, a part of its 
treasures. Like the history of its past and like the 
story of these lives, which henceforth becomes a 
part of its history, they will be a portion of what is 
to be bequeathed to those w^ho in long succession, 
we hope, are to follow and worship here. 

I am gratified personally that this duty falls to 
me, for, in a somewhat protracted term of sei*vice 
in this society, it has been my good fortune to be 
associated intimately with every one of these noble 
men in the various duties which have devolved 
upon our committee ; and I stand here to bear per- 
sonal testimony to-day to the faithfulness, the de- 
votion, the often self-sacriiicing readiness with 
which they gave of their time, their ability, their 
substance, if only this old church which they loved 
so well might be benefited and helped, and the 
purposes for which it stood might be strengthened. 
Those four men typified as well as any four mor- 



34 THE SECOND CHURCH IN BOSTON 

tals may the special characteristics which this 
church in its long history of two centuries and a 
half has stood for and which these memorials are 
supposed to represent, — Patriotism, Courage, Char- 
ity, Truth. These were all manifested in their 
lives, in their words, and in their actions, simply, 
earnestly, and well, as they went about their work 
in the city. Every one made his mark in the 
sphere in which he was called to labor, and each 
left behind him a memory which can be fitly and 
properly commemorated here. 

But it seems to me that, after all, the true benefit 
to this church will not be attained, and the memory 
of these men will not accomplish what it should, 
unless these memorials shall stand for something 
better than that, unless they shall stand as an in- 
centive, as a direct, intentional, and powerful coer- 
cive force, to urge and stimulate the men and 
women who sit in these pews to-day to the same 
faithful, earnest work which these men have done. 
Not only in the memory of the past are we to glory. 
We are also to glory in the fact that their memory 
urges us to actions in the future which shall carry 
forward the work which they so long and so well 
maintained, which shall firmly plant still farther 
in the future the standard round which they so 
bravely rallied. 

" Lives of great men all remind us 
We can make our lives sublime ; 
And, departing, leave behind us 

Footprints on the sands of time." 



<; 



m 



J 



I liUOlv»H]rtl 

+ 

!N MEMORIAM 

REV CHANDLER ROBBINSDD 

1810 + 1882 

THE- FAITH rUL CHRISTIAN • MINISTER OFTHE 
sFrnvn rniRCH IN BOSTON TOR- 41 > EARS 

1833 + 1874 

MARY ELIZA ■FROTHINCHAM 

WIFE OF 

REV CHANDLER ROBBINS ■ D D 
1812 + 1870 



^ Blr.bini twUipDfftil iBliifli dif 111 ll)p LortJ(or lUrti 

' ^. rrsi fioui itinr labours anJiltinriuortisiUi follow itifiu" [^"m 



•fft* 



?? D : 1891 



THE ROBBINS TABLET 



THE EMERSON MEMORIAL SERVICE. 



THE Afternoon Service was conducted by the Young 
People's Fraternity of the Second Church in co- 
operation with the Young People's Union of Massa- 
chusetts. The following is the order of exercises : — 

©rgan iJ0hmtarg. " Hymn of Praise," Mendelssohn. 

H. G. Tucker 
Solo, "With Verdure Clad," Cr<?^//^;/ . . . Miss McKay 

SHarlJB of Widtame .... Miss Rebecca D. Homer, 

Presidefit of the Fraternity 

l^gmn, " The Light pours down from Heaven," Lowell Mason. 
ILiturgg (leader and members responsively). 

What are the principles of our Union "i 

Truth, worship, service. 
What does Jesus say of truth ? 

" Know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." 
How may we know of the truth ? 
" Revelation is not sealed ; 
Answering unto man's endeavor, 
Truth and right are still revealed." 
How shall we worship God ? 

" God is a Spirit : they that worship him must wor- 
ship him in spirit and in truth." 
Shall we pray to God ? 

" What are men better than sheep or goats, 
That nourish a blind life within the brain, 
If, knowing God, they lift not hands in prayer .'' " 



36 THE SECOND CHURCH IN BOSTON 

What does Jesus say of his mission ? 

" I came that they might have life, and that they might 
have it more abundantly." 
Is salvation thus dependent upon helping others ? 

" Heaven's gate is shut to him who comes alone : 
Save thou a soul, and it shall save thine own," 
For what, then, do we unite ? 

In the love of truth we unite for the worship of God 
and the service of man ; and, as his followers, we 
accept the religion of Jesus, holding, in accordance 
with his teaching, that practical religion is summed 
up in love to God and love to man. 

Ecatitngs from lEmcrson's SMritings, 

Herbert A. Wadleigh 
3Lorti'0 ^ragcr. 

Solo, " Promise of Life," Cowen Miss McKay 

^tibrcsg Walter P. Eaton, 

President of the National Young People's Religious Union 

?Eni)cilinjg of Bust Miss Alice L. Higgins, 

Superintendent of the Sunday School 

Closing l^omn, " God bless our Native Land " . . No. 321 

Benetficti'on. The Lord watch between me and thee when we 
are absent one from another. Amen. 



REMARKS. 

BY MISS REBECCA D. HOMER. 

'TpHE large congregation gathered here, notwith- 
-*' standing the dreary weather, makes the privi- 
lege of welcoming you doubly pleasant. 

Many famous men have been connected with 
this society, and this morning we have been doing 
honor to some of its prominent ministers and lay- 
men ; but, of all the names that have been upon our 
lips, there is none which stands for more wide- 
spread influence, through words spoken and writ- 
ten, than the name of Ralph Waldo Emerson, our 
former minister. As a loving tribute to one whose 
thoughts have reached throughout our land and 
upon whom we, as a society, love to think we have 
a nearer and more personal claim, the young 
people have deemed it a pleasure and a privilege 
to present a bust of Emerson to this church. 

Our Young People's Fraternity extends a hearty 
welcome to this large congregation, and invites all 
to unite in the service which is to follow. 

At this point selections from Mr. Emerson's essays 
were read by Herbert A. Wadleigh, a member of the 
Fraternity. 



38 THE SECOND CHURCH IN BOSTON 



ADDRESS. 

BY WALTER P. EATON, 
President of the National Young People'' s Religious Union. 

'IXT'ERE it possible to characterize the mental 
power of Emerson in a single phrase, it 
might be that he makes one think, and that he 
carries one away, in mind and soul, by his passages 
of great and pathetic eloquence. 

Youth is the time when the mind is most eager 
to grasp new ideas of life and conduct, the time 
when the heart is most readily moved by poetry 
and eloquence. Hence it is that Emerson's appeal 
is so strong to young people everywhere. Accord- 
ingly, it is most fitting that his memorial to-day 
should be given and dedicated by the young people 
of the only church which he ever graced as pastor, — 
The Second Church of Boston. 

It is my own good fortune to be allowed on this 
occasion to pay my tribute to his memory, to give 
some hint of that which he has done for me, some 
faint suggestion of that which he can do for other 
young men and women. Such a man as Emerson 
is many-sided, has infinite aspects. The attitude 
of mind, for instance, which led him, in 1832, to 
resign from the charge of this Second Church, is 
rich matter for an essay or a sermon. A man who 
would not pray publicly from his pulpit, nor ad- 
minister the Lord's Supper to his congregation, 
because he felt such acts to be, for him, insincere 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 39 

and formal, and who sacrificed his chosen life-work 
rather than perform them ; a man " who broke 
his own pedestal to destroy the idolatry he saw 
about him," — has that in his character well worth 
our consideration. It is not so much with Emer- 
son, the man, that we must concern ourselves to-day : 
it is with the written works he has left behind ; 
and, again, with but one feature of those works, — 
their peculiar message to young people. That 
message is, perhaps, the most vital and lasting 
worth of Emerson's literary remains : it is of that 
message I shall speak. 

I can well remember my own first plunge into 
the works of Emerson. It came about, like most 
of the good things in our reading, in a haphazard, 
almost truant fashion. Many a time I had been 
advised by friends, zealous of my moral well-being, 
to read his essays ; and I had always refused. We 
must not be driven to morality and love of the 
spirit, or we rebel. Such love must come of its 
own accord, catch us by surprise, and startle us 
into acceptance by its sudden nearness and appeal. 
Thus it came to me. I chanced to read one day 
of an incident in Emerson's life. He had been 
lecturing in some out-of-the-way town, giving to 
his small audience the wealth of his thought and 
eloquence. After he had finished his lecture, the 
village Socrates came up to him, and said, " Mr. 
Emerson, I don't agree with the ground you took: 
can you prove to me that you are correct ? " Emer- 
son arose. " Sir," he answered, " I never argue 
these high questions : if I have given to one mcni- 



40 THE SECOND CHURCH IN BOSTON 

ber of this audience a deeper thought, a loftier 
aspiration, I am satisfied. Good-night." 

Those were stirring words, — words that no young 
man with a drop of blood in his veins could well 
resist. I turned to Emerson gladly then, for I no 
longer feared to find in him mere Sunday-school 
morality. I turned to him, and opened on this pas- 
sage : — 

" To believe your own thought, to believe that 
what is true for you in your private heart is true for 
all men, — that is genius. Speak your latent con- 
viction, and it shall be the universal sense ; for the 
inmost in due time becomes the outmost, and our 
first thought is rendered back to us by the trumpets of 
the last judgment. ... A man should learn to detect 
and watch that gleam of light which flashes across 
his mind from within, more than the lustre of the 
firmament of bards and sages. Yet he dismisses 
without notice his thought, because it is his. In 
every work of genius we recognize our own rejected 
thoughts: they come back to us with a certain 
alienated majesty. Great works of art have for us 
no more affecting lesson than this. They teach us 
to abide by our spontaneous impression with good- 
humored inflexibility, then, most when the whole 
cry of voices is on the other side. Else to-morrow 
a stranger will say, with masterly good sense, pre- 
cisely what we have thought and felt all the time ; 
and we shall be forced to take with shame our own 
opinion from another." 

Here, surely, was no mere moralizing, but prac- 
tical good sense, the good sense of keen psychology ; 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 4 1 

and good sense made strangely appealing by a cer- 
tain flavor of eloquence. The "alienated majesty" 
of my own rejected thoughts, spoken how often by 
another, came vividly before me, and startled me into 
new self-consciousness, awakening in me the majesty 
of those thoughts I had not rejected, arousing a 
passionate longing to speak henceforth according 
to my nature, not according to the dictates of this 
or that man or woman or custom. I read on : — 

"Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron 
string. . . . Let a man know his worth, and keep 
things under his feet. Let him not peep or steal, or 
skulk up and down with the air of a charity boy, a bas- 
tard, an interloper in the world which exists for him. 
But the man in the street, finding no worth in himself 
corresponding to the force which built a tower or 
sculptured a marble god, feels poor when he looks 
on these. To him a palace, a statue, or a costly 
book, have an alien and forbidding air, much like a 
gay equipage, and seem to say like that, ' Who are 
you, sir.?' Yet they are all his, suitors for his no- 
tice, petitioners to his faculties, that they come out 
and take possession. The picture waits for my 
verdict : it is not to command me, but I am to settle 
its claim to praise." 

"Discontent, — that is the first step in progress, 
the first hint of the better life. Mankind is happy 
with a drum and cymbals till some master comes to 
play for them on the violin ; and thereafter the drum 
sounds less and less pleasant to their ears, for they 
have heard a more perfect music. So the young 
man or woman who comes to Emerson all unaware 



42 THE SECOND CHURCH IN BOSTON 

as yet that he has a peculiar nature of his own, a 
young man or woman who takes his opinions second- 
hand, who finds his greatest ambition and highest 
happiness in successful conformity to custom and 
pink-tea leadership, will find, in the essays he reads, a 
note of doubt, — a note that will grow and swell in 
volume if allowed its way, until it changes entirely 
the youth's ideals, placing the emphasis on character 
and spirit." 

Character and spirit, — those two things are 
Emerson's insistent message to young men and 
women, — a message needed no less in 1900 than in 
1832. For every man must grow through the stages 
of the past. The babe must be taught what the 
Stone Men knew; the boy learns the chivalry of 
the Middle Ages ; and the youth on the threshold 
of manhood has the choice of the best ideals of life 
his own age affords. But it is always a choice : 
there is always the question to be decided, — not. 
What shall I do for a living.'^ What profession 
shall I learn ? but. What sort of a man shall I make 
of myself? What ideals shall I follow.'* In this 
decisive period we all have flashes of the truer light : 
we all of us realize, even as we worry over the cut 
of our winter suit or rejoice that So-and-so has 
invited us to her dance, that only as we are faithful 
to the deeper promptings of our natures are we of 
real worth in the world. It is hard to keep this 
realization always in the mind, it is hard to keep 
the true light clear before the eyes. It is at this 
hour that Emerson brings to us the greatest help 
and counsel. 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 43 

We all have friends, and perhaps some of them 
are with us now, who thoughtlessly base their esti- 
mate of acquaintances on trifling peculiarities of 
dress or deportment, or who withhold their approval 
because a person does not entirely carry out the 
requirements which the society of the day demands. 
Is it not safe to say that such critics seek the shadow 
rather than the substance ? With what tonic effect 
these words of Emerson must appeal to their more 
thoughtful, sober sense ! 

Could any one come away unmoved from this frag- 
ment of verse, so simple and straightforward that 
it reaches, perhaps, a pathetic dignity unattained 
by any of Emerson's more ambitious poetry ? — 

" You shall not love me for what daily spends ; 
You shall not know me in the noisy street ; 
Where I, as others, follow petty ends ; 
Nor when in fair saloons we chance to meet ; 
Nor when I'm jaded, sick, anxious or mean : 
But love me then and only when you know 
Me for the channel of the rivers of God 
From deep ideal fontal heavens that flow." 

Character, firmness, lofty independence, — that 
is the constantly recurring note. " Know thyself : 
every heart vibrates to that iron string." Know 
thyself first ; for thus only can you truly know others, 
can you truly estimate their worth in the world. 
Only as a young man hears the ring of his own God- 
given manhood has he the least right or the faintest 
title to pass judgment on the meanest of his fellows. 
Only character is worth while. This is Emerson's 
message to young men and women. It is a message 



44 THE SECOND CHURCH IN BOSTON 

for to-day as well as for yesterday, and for infinite 
to-morrows. While his message is this, it is some- 
thing more besides. Self-reliance, character, — these 
are not always enough, noble and necessary though 
they be. A something more is needed, which is 
spirituality, — a wholesome cheerfulness and trust. 

One of the greatest results of an undergraduate 
course at Harvard is the birth of mental freedom, 
the development of individual thought and judg- 
ment. But too often Harvard College does not 
confer with these the equal blessings of cheerfulness 
and faith. She sets free the intellect: she does not 
breathe life into the spirit. She breeds character 
without ambition, strength without heroism. The 
young man who is a cynic because he has sought 
an answer, but found none, is more worthy of 
respect, to be sure, than the young man who has 
not sought at all. His epigrams, though they give 
the sneer to what is most sacred in life, are better 
to hear than the everlasting gibber of the youth 
who aspires to be known as a " sport." Yet such a 
man is not heroic. Such a man can kindle no fire of 
enthusiasm, can possess no glad contagion of spirit. 
To such a young man Emerson brings a further 
message, — the message of spiritual hope and fervor, 
of the bravery of the soul. He has well described 
himself and his own mission to youth in his essay 
on " Success." 

" 'Tis cheap and easy to destroy," he says. " There 
is not a joyful boy or an innocent girl buoyant with 
fine purposes of duty, in all the street full of eager 
and rosy faces, but a cynic can chill and dishearten 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 45 

with a single word. Despondency comes readily 
enough to the most sanguine. The cynic has only 
to follow their hint with his bitter confirmation, and 
they check that eager courageous pace, and go home 
with heavier step and premature age. . . . Yes, this 
is easy ; but to help the young soul, add energy, 
inspire hope, and blow the coals into a useful flame ; 
to redeem defeat by new thought, by firm action, — 
that is not easy, that is the work of divine men." 

That divine work of inspiration, of planting hope 
in the life of the spirit, is also of Emerson's mission 
to America. Know thyself, discover your character 
and worthy tendencies, and then trust them with 
implicit faith ; keep your ideal always before you ; 
live the "strenuous life"; be heroic in your own 
sphere, however humble. No man lives in vain ! 
Every man has a soul to answer for, an uncommon 
work to do. 

Finally, it is Emerson's mission constantly to re- 
iterate in young and eager ears these words : "Trust 
thyself " : every heart vibrates to that iron string. 
Accept the place the Divine Providence has found for 
you, the society of your contemporaries, the con- 
nection of events. Great men have always done so, 
and confided themselves childlike to the genius of 
their age, betraying their perception that the Eternal 
was stirring at their heart, working through their 
hands, predominating in all their being. And we 
are now men, and must accept in the highest spirit 
the same transcendent destiny. 

Surely, these are words of inspiration, a strain of 
the grandest heroism. Surely, the mild-faced, quiet 



46 THE SECOND CHURCH IN BOSTON 

man who spoke them was as true a hero as the capt- 
urer of cities or the sinker of fleets, — a hero of the 
spirit. Surely, the young people of that congrega- 
tion who once listened to his lofty thought and 
looked up to his sunny countenance do naught 
amiss in giving us back again his features for a last- 
ing recollection. As we look upon his face, here in 
marble, may each young heart hear once again his 
counsel ! — 

" Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. 
Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of 
principle." 

The bust of Emerson, which had been draped with the 
American flag, was unveiled by Miss Alice L, Higgins, 
the Superintendent of the Sunday School, who said : — 

We have come in this century to feel that all 
things have history ; nothing springs into being at 
a word, but somewhere has been a flash of concep- 
tion, a period of development leading up to the 
glad moment of fulfilment. 

Even so has it been with this memorial, which 
some four years ago, it became the earnest wish of the 
young people of this church to give to their church. 
Perhaps no one knows better than I the cost of 
this memorial in the coin of loving service and 
glad self-sacrifice. 

You have heard why it is peculiarly the privi- 
lege of the young people here to remember Emer- 
son. His voice in that pulpit preached the gospel 
of individual character before he preached it to a 
listening world. 




RALPH WALDO EMERS' 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 47 

Far back in the past was the first church of this 
society dedicated by those who felt themselves ser- 
vants of Almighty God. To-day has this church 
been anew dedicated by those who feel themselves 
children of an all-loving Father. Long may it 
stand; and while it stands may this memorial re- 
main, given by the young people in memory of the 
spirit and character of Ralph Waldo Emerson. 



The bust of Mr. Emerson was made by the well- 
known sculptor, Mr. Sydney L. Morse, of Buffalo, N.Y. 



A PURITAN SERVICE. 



THE evening of Sunday was devoted to a Puritan 
service, and included addresses by the ministers of 
five of the oldest churches of the Massachusetts Bay 
Colony. 

The music of the evening was rendered by a select 
choir of sixteen voices, a string orchestra and flute, under 
the direction of H. G. Tucker, and in the final number by 
a chorus of forty voices from the Handel and Haydn 
Society. Miss Mary Phillips Webster selected quotations 
and rendered valuable assistance in arranging the musical 
programme. It was intended to show the gradual devel- 
opment of church music from the sixteenth to the nine- 
teenth century. 



A PURITAN SERVICE. 

" Either at morning or evening, there may be sung an hymn, or such 
Hke song to the praise of Almighty God in the best melody and music 
that may be conveniently devised, having respect that the sentence of the 
hymn may be understood and perceived." (Queen Elizabeth^ s Injtmctions 
for the Guidance of the Clergy, 1559.) 

" The people are everywhere exceedingly inclined to the better part. 
The practice of joining in church music has very much conduced to this. 
For, as soon as they had once commenced singing in public, in only one 
little church in London, immediately not only the churches in the neighbor- 
hood but even the towns far distant began to vie with each other in the 
same practice. You may now sometimes see at Paul's cross, after the 
sermon, six thousand persons ... all singing together and praising God." 
(Bishop feweVs Letter from London to Peter Martyr at Zurich, Mar. 5, i 560.) 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 49 

©III l^unlirctitfj. Original tune, 1552; Kethe's words, 1561. 

From Sternhold and Hopkins, 1588. 

( To be siifig by all the people in unison ■without accompaniment.) 



g!^v:,,Jjjj.p»-'iJJd.r^^ 



t' g V, cJ /J cJ J ^ ^ .. ■ " u 



3Z 



^ 



" All people that on earth do dwell 

syng to the Lord with cheerefull voyce 
Him serue with feare his prayse forth tell ; 
come ye before him and reioyce. 

The Lord ye know is God indeede, 
without our aide he did vs make ; 

We are his flocke. He doth vs feede, 
and for his sheepe he doth vs take. 

O enter then his gates with prayse, 
approch with ioy his courts vnto ; 

Praise, laud, and bless his name alwayes, 
for it is seemely so to doe. 

For why ? the Lord our God is good, 

his mercy is foreuer sure ; 
His truth at all times firmely stood, 

and shall from age to age endure," 

^litirfss Rev. Elvin J. Prescott, 

Minister of the First Church in Salem. {Founded 1629.) 

" Concerning singing of Psalms, we allow of the people's joining with 
one voice in a plain tune, but not of tossing the Psalms from one side to 
the other with intermingling of organs." {Confession of Puritans, 1571.) 



50 THE SECOND CHURCH IN BOSTON 

" If God give you a spirit of Reformation . . . what will the end be ? 
Comfort and blessing. . . . 

" Therefore I beseech you in the name of God, set your hearts to this 
' work.' And if you set your hearts to it, then you will sing Luther's 
Psalm. That is a rare Psalm for a Christian ! " {Speech of Oliver Crom- 
well at the Opening of the Second Protectorate Parliament, 1656.) 

EKtfjer'g Psalm. (Psalm 46.) 

Sternhold and Hopkins, ed. 1630. 

( To be sung in unison without accompaniment.) 

1. " The Lord is our defence and aide, 

the strengthe whereby we stand ; 
When we with woe are much dismaide, 
he is our help at hand. 

2. Though the earth remoue we will not feare, 
though hills so high and steepe, 

Be thrust and hurled here and there, 
within the Sea so deepe. 

3. Not though the waves doe rage so sore, 
that all the bankes it spills ; 

And though it ouerflow the shore, 
and beat downe mightie hils ; 

4. Yet one faire flood doth send abroad 
his pleasant streames apace. 

To fresh the Citie of our God, 
and wash his holy place. 

5. In midst of her the Lord doth dwell 
she can no whit decay ; 

All things against her that rebell 
the Lord will truely stay. 

7. The Lord of hosts doth us defend, 
he is our strength and tower ; 
On Jacob's God we doe depend, 
And on his mightie power." 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 5 1 

COLOSSIANS III. 

" Let the word of God dwell plenteously in you, in all wisdome teaching 
and exhorting one another in Psalmes, Himnes, and spirituall songs, sing- 
ing to the Lord with grace in your hearts." 

James V. 
" If any be afflicted, let him pray, and if any be merry let him sing 
psalmes." {Title-page of Bay Psalm Book, 1640.) 

Pgalm 23, from Mather's Psalterium Americanum. 17 18. 

{Set to " Low Dtitch Tune,^^ unaccompanied. From Bay Psalm Book, ed. 
1698. Each line read or lined out by att officer of the church before being 
sung.) 

1. My Shepherd is th' Eternal God ; || I shall not be in 

[^ng] want : || 

2. In pastures of a tender grass || He [lE&er] makes me to 

lie down : || To waters of tranquilities || He gently car- 
ries me, [^l0nJD[.]|| 

3. My feeble and my wandering Soul || He [femtJlg] does 

fetch back again ; || In the plain paths of righteousness || 
He does lead [3lnti guitc] me along, || because of the 
regard He has,|| [3Eber] unto His Glorious Name.|| 

4. Yea, when I shall walk in the Vale || of the dark [ttsmal] 

shade of death, || I'll of no evil be afraid, || because thou 
[eber] art with me.|| Thy rod and thy staff, these are 
what II yield [constant] comfort unto me. 

5. A table thou dost furnish out || richly [for nu] before my 

face. II 'Tis in view of mine enemies ;|| [^ntl tfjm] 
my head thou dost anoint || with fatning and perfuming 
Oil : II my cup it overflows. || 

6. Most certainly the thing that is i| Good, with [most kinlJ] 

Benignity, II This all the days that I do live || shall [still 
anil] ever follow me ; || Yea, I shall dwell, and Sab- 
batize,|| even to length of days,|| Lodged in the House 
which does belong || to [i)tm inljo's] the Eternal 
God.li 

^tjtircss Rev. Eugene R. Shippen, 

Minister of the First Church in Dorchester. {Founded 1 630.) 



52 THE SECOND CHURCH IN BOSTON 

3llJt)r£S2 Rev. James Eells, 

Minister of the First Church in Boston. (^Founded 1630.) 

" For Man may justly tuneful Strains admire, 
His Soul is Music, and his Breast a Lyre. 
Music, the mighty Artist, Man can rule, 
So long as that has Numbers, he a Soul." 
(Quoted by Thomas Walter in his ^^ Sermon on Regular Singing.") 

^salm 119 .... From Walter's Singing Book (17 21). 

(Recommended by Increase and Cotton Mather ; sung in three parts, 

unaccompanied. ) 

12. Bless'd art thou, O ETERNAL God ; || 
Thy Statutes [tfjarefotE] teach thou me. || 

13. I all the Judgments of thy mouth || 
have with my lips declar'd [aftroali] 

14. I in thy Testimonies way,|| [as muri)] 
as in all wealth, rejoyce. 

15. I'll on thy Precepts meditate ; || 

and I'll regard [toitl) rare] thy Paths." 

Psalterium Americanum. 

" Down starts the Bass with Grave Majestic Air, 
And up the Treble mounts with shrill Career, 
With softer Sounds in mild melodious Maze 
Warbling between, the Tenor gently plays 
And, if th' inspiring Altus joins the Force 
See 1 like the Lark it Wings its towering Course 
Thro' Harmony's sublimest Sphere it flies 
And to Angelic Accents seems to rise." 

Br. Mather Bytes. 

SttttlUtm. A favorite Fuguing tune. 

Daniel Read, Philo-Musico, 1793. 

(From The American Singing Book, 1793; with accompaniment of strings 

and futes.) 

" While Shepherds watched their flocks by night. 
All seated on the ground, 
The Angel of the Lord came down, 
And glory shone around." 

^btiregs Rev. James De Normandie, D.D., 

Minister of the First Church, Roxbury. (Founded 1631.) 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 53 

" in the singing seats 
Of the meeting-house, — bass-viol, flute, 
And tuning-fork, and rows of village-girls. 
With lips half open ; treble clashed with bass 
In most melodious madness." 

Lucy Larcotn. 

©enmarfe .... From Lock Hospital Collection, ed. 1809. 

{Used by Handel and Haydn Society of Boston at tkeir first meetings ; small 
orgaft, strings and flute.) 

" Before Jehovah's awful throne, 
Ye nations bow with sacred joy. 
Know that the Lord is God alone ! 
He can create and he destroy. 

His sov'reign power without our aid 
Made us of clay, and form'd us men : 

And when like wandering sheep we stray'd. 
He brought us to his fold again. 

We are his people, we his care. 

Our souls, and all our mortal frame ; 

What lasting honours shall we rear. 
Almighty Maker, to thy name ? 

We'll crowd thy gates with thankful songs, 
High as the heavens our voices raise 

And earth with her ten thousand tongues 
Shall fill thy courts with sounding praise. 

Wide as the world is thy command. 

Vast as eternity thy love. 
Firm as a rock thy truth must stand. 

When rolling years shall cease to move." 

Isaac Watts. 
Johti Wesley. 

'SlilJresg Rev. George A. Gordon, D.D., 

Minister of the Third {Old South) Church. (Founded \66().) 



54 THE SECOND CHURCH IN BOSTON 

" But let my due feet never fail 
To walk the studious cloister's pale 
And love the high embow'ed roof, 
With antique pillars massy proof, 
And storied windows richly dight 
Casting a dim religious light ; 
There let the pealing organ blow 
To the full-voiced quire below 
In service high and anthems clear, 
As may with sweetness, through mine ear, 
Dissolve me into ecstacies. 
And bring all Heaven before mine eyes." 

John MilUn. 

Cfjorus, " Judas Maccabaeus," By Handel. 

(The music of this Oratorio was advertised for sale in the " Boston Cen- 
tinel," Feb. 23, 1807, as "by Mr. Handell"; full organ, strings and flutes, 
with chorus.) 

" O Father, whose almighty pow'r 
The heav'ns and earth, and seas adore ! 
The heart of Judah, thy delight, 
In one defensive band unite 
And grant a leader bold and brave, 
If not to conquer, born to save." 

Conjgtcgational ?^gmn. " America." 

(Organ, orchestra, chorus and people.) 

"Even them who kept thy truth so pure of old . . . Forget not." 
{John Milton). 

" I have witnessed the growth of their faith, I have seen the advance- 
ment of their virtue, I have known their perseverance in good works. To 
them I say. Go on, and the Lord go with you in peace and strength. . . . 
And when the day shall have arrived that these temples have mouldered, and 
all earthly worship ceases, — then — it is my hope and prayer that we shall 
be found side by side in the worship of eternity. . . . God bestow upon you 
the choicest of spiritual blessings. . . . May the spirit of Christ dwell in you 
richly with all wisdom ; and the peace of God which passeth all under- 
standing abide among you and sanctify you always." {From Farewell 
Address of Henry Ware, Jr., Oct. 4, 1830.) 

iBmrtictifln Rev. Thomas Van Ness, 

Minister oj The Second Church in Boston. (Founded 1649.) 



ADDRESS. 

BY THE REV. ELVIN J. PRESCOTT, 
Minister of the First Church, Salem. 

Friends of The Second Church in Boston, — I come 
to you to-night to bring you the greetings of the 
old First Church of Salem. Last night I stood 
before the little old First Church building in 
Salem, showing it to some friends. This morning 
I took the train and went down to Hingham and 
preached in that which is the oldest church build- 
ing now occupied in America, and to-night I come 
here to bring the greetings of the oldest organized 
religious society in America, upon your two hun- 
dred and fiftieth anniversary; and really, friends 
I do not know whether I belong to this century or 
to some other ! 

As I look back over the past and consider our 
theme,— " Our Debt to this Same Past," — it seems 
to me that the key-note of our thoughts might be 
the strength of character that these men brought 
into our land. God never undertakes to do a great 
work without beginning in seemingly small ways. 
He sows a tiny seed, and from that seed there 
grows a mighty plant. One would hardly have 
realized, had he lived in the early days of Puritan- 
ism in England, that those men who sailed over to 
America, so few of them, were to lay the founda- 



56 THE SECOND CHURCH IN BOSTON 

tion not only of a church, but of a mighty country 
and a mighty democracy. There was a mighty 
country to be settled, there were great forests to be 
cleared. There was to be established here a re- 
public, a democracy, such as the world had never 
seen. What was needed ? The one thing needed 
more than anything else was men, — strong, noble, 
and inspired men, men of strength of character. 
And if our Puritan ancestors were sometimes re- 
garded as cold externally, if they were cold in their 
Puritanism, if the history of the inner life counts 
for anything, we are told that in that inner life they 
were warm-hearted. They were tender and loving 
in their homes, showing that strength and ten- 
derness could be combined. So it seems to me 
that in Salem, in Boston, in Dorchester, in these 
towns of Massachusetts Bay, there was laid the 
foundation of that great strength of character 
which was not alone to give democracy in religion, 
but in government as well. That is one of our debts 
to the past. 

But there is another side to this question. We 
are not only to ask, What is our debt to the past, 
what do we owe these men } But what shall we do 
to pay that debt } If these men studied those great 
principles and carried them into effect, so that the 
results have been what they are, then on such an 
occasion as this it is well for us to ask. What shall 
be done to pay that debt ? If two hundred and 
fifty years ago there was a religious movement in 
Boston which resulted in the establishment of this 
church, as two hundred and seventy years ago there 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 57 

was such a movement in Salem, the question at the 
close of the nineteenth century is : What is going 
to be the future of that church ? What is going 
to be the future of our religion, the outcome of 
this strong old Puritanism? The Puritan minister 
stood as a man of God. He was the man that in- 
terpreted to the best of his ability the spirit of the 
divine life that entered his heart. The modern min- 
ister, his follower, stands as the interpreter of that 
life as it appears to him in the present, — in science, 
art, literature, and in all phases of modern life. 
More than that, he stands as did his older brother, 
as the inspirer to his congregation, to take his in- 
terpretation and make it a living reality in the 
community. This has been therein the work of the 
Christian minister. This is his work to-day as 
ever. If we are to pay our debt to the past, the 
minister of to-day, the church of to-day, needs the 
inspiration, the fire, the benediction, that shall enter 
his heart and inspire it with religious zeal and 
earnestness to carry on this work that these men 
have so nobly and gloriously started. I believe 
that every milestone in the progress of the Chris- 
tian Church means that we see this duty more 
clearly. We are holding this service to mark this 
two hundred and fiftieth milestone, from which we 
take a new step toward better things. That is the 
way we are to pay the debt to the past, and in that 
spirit I come to you with the greetings of the First 
Church of Salem. 



58 THE SECOND CHURCH IN BOSTON 



ADDRESS. 

BY THE REV. JAMES EELLS, 
Minister of the First Church in Boston. 

My Friends of The Second Churchy — I find it diffi- 
cult to put in words how very glad I am, and how 
great a privilege I regard it, to be here on this 
most interesting anniversary. Before venturing 
to come, I took counsel with your older sister, 
the First Church of Boston ; and, looking at me 
earnestly, she said : " Tell her that I remember 
those long, lonely years before she came, and how 
glad I was when she came, and what a joy it has 
been to work with her. Tell my sister. The Second 
Church, how I rejoice with her at this time." And 
then she grew serious and a little more earnest, 
and said, " Be sure and tell her that our work is 
not yet done." And so I come to bring you her 
greetings. Our work is not yet done, and the 
First Church will be glad to know that your work 
is going on with greater and fairer spirit than even 
in the past. 

By the request of your committee, I am to speak 
of " Our Inheritance from the Past." I desire very 
briefly to take one phase of this subject which 
often receives too scant notice. 

We inherit formative forces, not their appli- 
cations; potentialities, not their embodiments. 
Which truth frees us from the necessity of claim- 
ing only such things as seem to be most in accord 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 59 

with our present or so nearly in accord as to be 
made to appear quite so with a Httle patronizing 
apology. For many things of the past we have 
no word but that of sweeping denunciation or 
righteous scorn. But that may lose for us the 
deep and eternal worth of those very things. 
Abiding verities underlie the phenomena of every 
age. We may forfeit the worth of the verity when 
we refuse the phenomenon. Let me show you 
what I mean, for this is really my theme. 

I do not forget that I am speaking to some 
whose ecclesiastical, if not personal, ancestors were 
parishioners of the two mighty Mathers. Nor can 
I forget the prominent part which these two men 
took in the prosecution of witchcraft. Here is our 
first item. After this excitement had passed, the 
Rev. Cotton Mather was called upon by the gov- 
ernor to justify what had been done. The result 
was a book entitled " The Wonders of the Invisible 
World, being an Account of the Tryalls of Several 
Witches lately Executed in New England." This 
book was published in 1693, while as yet he was 
the colleague of his father in the ministry of this 
church. It thus sets forth the prevalent notion 
concerning witches : " The New Englanders are 
a people of God, settled in those which were once 
the Devil's territories ; and it may easily be sup- 
posed that the Devil was exceedingly disturbed 
when he perceived such people here. The Devil, 
thus irritated, try'd all sorts of methods to over- 
throw this plantation. . . . But all these Attempts 
of Hell have hitherto been Abortive. Wherefore 



6o THE SECOND CHURCH IN BOSTON 

the Devil is now making one Attempt more upon 
us; an Attempt more Difficult, more Surprising, 
more snarl'd with unintelligible Circumstances, 
than any that we have hitherto Encountered. . . . 
He has drawn forth his most Spiritual ones to 
make an Attacque upon us. We have now with 
horror seen the discovery of Witchcraft. An 
Army of Devils is horribly broke in upon the place 
which is the Centre of our English Settlement, and 
the houses of the good People there are fill'd with 
the doleful shrieks of their Children and Servants 
tormented by Invisible Hands with Tortures alto- 
gether Supernatural." Increase Mather, eight 
years before, had written of spectres seen, houses 
haunted, storms stirred up, all (to him) the un- 
doubted work of demons. 

Another amazing thing is the definiteness of 
the relation of these people to God. To men who 
believed so profoundly in the work of spirits, it 
was of supreme importance that the influence of 
the Good Spirit should be so thorough and so con- 
sistently recognized as to leave no loophole for the 
entrance of any least abomination. Believing them- 
selves to be under the direct and immediate control 
of God, that control must be evidenced in what- 
ever happened. Such happenings, small or large, 
became for them providential. The author of " The 
W^onder-working Providence of Zion's Savior in 
New England " affirms therein that God " standeth 
not as an idle spectator beholding his people's ruth 
and their enemies' rage, but as an actor in all ac- 
tions to bring to naught the desires of the wicked, 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 6 1 

having also the ordering of every weapon in its first 
produce, guiding every shaft that flies, leading each 
bullet to its place of settling, and each weapon to 
the wound it makes." Nothing could be more 
definite than that. Into the care of this Provi- 
dence they put themselves austerely, simply, grimly. 
God's commands they obeyed to the letter. For 
him they would live and die ; and their defence, 
when under question or censure, was the defence 
of Cotton Mather after the witchcraft frenzy, that 
God had assumed all the responsibility for that pro- 
ceeding. They carried this idea into everything. 

The General Court, in 1654, decreed that "those 
who have manifested themselves unsound in the 
faith, or not giving due satisfaction according to 
the rules of Christ," could not teach in the public 
schools, — an order which caused much discomfort 
and trouble. But there was nothing else to be 
done. Colleges and Latin schools were founded 
for the express purpose of educating young men 
for the ministry. The General Court also records, 
" To the end that the body of the commons may 
be preserved of honest and good men, it was 
ordered that for time to come no man shall be ad- 
mitted to the freedom of this body politic but such 
as are members of some of the churches within the 
limits of the same." It was their maxim that an 
orderly and peaceful government must be founded 
upon religion, and they knew of no other way to 
accomplish this. There was no lawyer in the com- 
munity for years, but they needed none. Their law 
book was the Bible. Their statutes were those of 



62 THE SECOND CHURCH IN BOSTON 

God revealed and committed to Christian magis- 
trates for administration. This rigor is explained 
when we see on the Records of the Massachusetts 
Company that " the propagating of the Gospel is 
the thing we do profess above all to be our aim in 
settling this plantation." 

Lastly, I must open that dark page of persecu- 
tions, when men and women were expelled and 
punished for believing contrary to the majority. 
Mistress Ann Hutchinson threw the little commu- 
nity into a ferment of excitement by her adherence 
to the covenant of grace instead of the accepted 
covenant of works. As everything was definite in 
those days, she and her followers left nothing to 
the imagination in their practices. And Mistress 
Ann Hutchinson was driven forth remorselessly 
into sickness, privation, exposure, and ultimate 
murder, for her " damnable heresies." Roger Will- 
iams, because he had " broached and divulged newe 
and dangerous opinions against the auchthoritie of 
magistrates," was ordered to " depart out of their 
jurisdiction within sixe weeks nexte ensueing." The 
Baptists were persecuted almost beyond human en- 
durance — whipped, imprisoned, fined, reviled, ban- 
ished — because they assailed the " standing order," 
made " infaunt baptisme a nullitie," pronounced all 
members of churches " unbaptized persones," and 
denied them valid ministry and ordinances. The 
Court, therefore, judged it " necessary that they be 
remooved to some other part of the country or else- 
where," to set up their " free school for seduction 
into wayes of error." But by far the most tragic 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 63 

and sad of these struggles was the treatment of the 
Quakers. What need to recount the story of Mary- 
Dyer and George Fox, of the hangings on Boston 
Common, of the floggings at the tail of an ox-cart 
creeping through the village streets ? It is all 
dreadful, pitiful, shameful. But is there nothing 
for us other than sorrow that such things could 
ever be, or the wish to forget and apologize for 
them.f* Have we no inheritance from these dark 
things } 

When men nervously shut their windows in the 
gathering gloom of night-fall, shuddered when the 
wind howled in their great square chimneys, and 
blanched if the gaze of an ancient dame were fixed 
upon them, I take it to have been merely the per- 
version of the noblest truth. I believe it to have 
been that day's crude, dramatic, unconscious but 
powerful witness borne to the truth that matter is 
interfused with spirit; that this life of ours and 
all the reaches and affairs of it are dominated by 
spirit ; that matter has no essential obstacle to the 
influence of God. Their doctrine of special provi- 
dence is a corollary to this same truth. When they 
declared so narrowly and with such bigotry that 
none but church members could teach school or 
vote ; when they insisted upon the most trivial 
things as the direct action of Deity; when they 
made the Bible the literal rule of their faith and 
practice, and fell into such absurd mistakes in so 
doing, — I find in it the great, burning desire of all 
earnest, conscientious men, — that God, and Right- 
eousness and Truth shall be the very foundation of 



64 THE SECOND CHURCH IN BOSTON 

all statecraft and community intercourse. I do not 
care for their " Blue Laws," nor do I inherit them. 
They were practices, not potentialities ; but I fear 
lest in sweeping them out of doors I lose also the 
inheritance of loyalty to God which they betoken. 
I fear, in laughing at their absurdities, I be guilty 
of being laughed at for my shallowness. When 
they sternly, savagely drove from among them those 
who did not share their beliefs, I do not find merely 
cruelty nor intolerance. Rather it is the rough but 
supreme recognition of the community idea, — that, 
if one member suffer, all the members suffer, that 
the sin of one darkens the fair lives of all, that no 
full righteousness can prevail if sin is permitted. 
They purified their lives by expelling the turbid 
element. It was expulsion rather than reformation. 
We shall be vastly poorer if out of our inheri- 
tance we leave this truth of the recognition of the 
indwelling, incoming God, if we forget that we be- 
long to the community, and that instead of expel- 
ling the sinner we should strive as never before to 
expel the sin, with the same relentless, uncompro- 
mising severity. This sombre, sober, materialistic 
life of ours is all sun-shot with the glory of the pres- 
ent God, not by the demons of witchcraft. And we 
inherit the beautiful riches of God, who "fulfils him- 
self in many ways, lest one good custom should cor- 
rupt the world." Standing here on the threshold 
of a new era of better living, and newer, more hope- 
ful years, what wealth can you take with you like 
the belief that this matter-of-fact, hurrying, familiar 
world is all God's, through and through, and there- 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 65 

fore spirituality is not an idle dream ; that this 
community lays its just claim upon your faith and 
hope and charity, emphasizing that claim by insist- 
ing that ye cannot be perfect and entire until the 
community lacks nothing? Into this vast, this win- 
ning, this magnificent inheritance may we all go, as 
some time into the joy of our Lord. 

" Ah ! from the old world let some one answer give : 

' Scorn ye this world, their tears, their inward cares '. 
I say unto you, see ihzt your souls live 
A deeper life than theirs ! 

" Children of men ! not that your age excel 
In pride of life the ages of your sires, 
But that ye think clear, feel deep, bear fruit well, 
The Friend of man desires." 



ADDRESS. 

BY THE REV. EUGENE R. SHIPPEN, 
Minister of the First Church in Dorchester. 

/^NE of the first sermons preached by Increase 
Mather had for its text, " Pray for the peace of 
Jerusalem : they shall prosper that love thee." 
That sermon was in 1661, in his home church in 
Dorchester, three years before his installation as 
minister of this your church. Let that text be my 
salutation this night as you celebrate your quarter 
millenial anniversary. May peace rest upon this 
church, and prosperity make here its abiding home ! 



66 THE SECOND CHURCH IN BOSTON 

That is what we of Dorchester would wish for you. 
With that wish for your successful future are joined 
our congratulations for your honorable past. The 
First Parish in Dorchester has a distinct share in 
that past, and we rejoice with you in your anniversary 
celebration as kinsmen. Men and women trained 
to godliness in the Dorchester church in the early 
days gave their strength to this church of yours 
when most it was needed. In our church records 
there is entry after entry " dismissed to joyne unto 
the new church at Boston " (your church being called 
the new church until the formation of the Third 
Church). Some of these records relating to the 
Second Church antedate your own extant records. 
Aron Way, William Ireland, Thankfull Baker, Ma- 
halaleel Munings are among the names of Dor- 
chester members dismissed to Boston. Dorchester 
blood thus flows in the veins of this aged but active 
religious body. 

Personal ties in this way created were strength- 
ened as the years went on by the bonds of spiritual 
fellowship. The two churches were one in their 
attempt to create a theocracy. They were one in 
their espousal of the cause of independence. They 
were one in their gradual loosing of the chains of 
Calvinism. They are one to-day in proclaiming 
the simple religion of Jesus. 

Our records bear early witness to the intimate 
relations between the two churches. Frequent were 
the days of thanksgiving and humiliation jointly 
observed. One of the most significant and inter- 
esting of the special days observed by the churches. 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 67 

of Boston and neighborhood was that set apart in 
December, 1659, "on y^ behalf of o"" native Cuntry 
they being at this time in such an unsettled way of 
government being w'^'out p'tector & w'^'out parla- 
ment only y^ power remaining in y* army & they 
alsoe being devided." * 

But for one reason above all others the Dor- 
chester church claims a share in your history : we 
gave you the Mathers. Six of them, perhaps more, 
have preached in your church, three of whom (I 
might almost say four) were your settled ministers. 
Richard Mather, the founder of the famous family, 
was minister of the First Church and Parish in 
Dorchester from 1636 to 1669. Of his labors in 
his parish and in the colony I need not here speak. 
Distinguished as he was in his day and generation, 
it was his happy fate to give to posterity, and 
especially to this church, sons, and, through them, 
grandsons to shed even greater lustre on the name. 
As the quaint inscription upon his head-stone in 
the Old Dorchester Burying-ground reads : — 

DiuiNELY Rich & Learned Richard Mather 
Sons like Him Prophets Great Rejoiced this Father. 

Three of Richard's sons are associated with your 
church. Samuel, the oldest, was the first minister 
of this church. Though not actually settled, and 
so not appearing in the list, he was yet the first 
minister called to the pastorate of The Second 
Church, and, as a matter of fact, served most ac- 
ceptably as the minister for several months, until 
his return to England. 

* Records oi the First Church at Dorchester, p. 32. 



68 THE SECOND CHURCH IN BOSTON 

Another son, Eleazar, is in the Dorchester rec- 
ords thus distinguished in a note by the scribe : 
" Preached at Boston North," that being one of the 
popular titles of The Second Church. We know, 
however, that he was settled over the church at 
Northampton, its first minister, so that his services 
here must have been only occasional. There is a 
melancholy interest connected with Eleazar Mather 
in that he was the father of the hapless Mrs. 
Williams, of Deerfield, killed by the Indians. 

The sixth son of Richard Mather, Dorchester 
born and bred, was Increase Mather. In the 
annals of the Protestant ministry there are few 
more illustrious names. For over half a century 
minister of this church, for sixteen years President 
of Harvard College, the first to receive its honor- 
ary degree of Doctor of Divinity, Increase Mather 
was in his day perhaps the chief citizen of Boston, 
and the leading spirit in New England. 

Three years before he became your settled Min- 
ister, he supplied on alternate Sundays for one 
winter the pulpit of this church and his father's 
church in Dorchester. A very special interest 
Dorchester had in him, therefore. Under date of 
March 22, 1664, the following entry was made in 
our Dorchester church records. Let me read it 
from the precious volume itself, which our senior 
deacon with many warnings and much misgiving 
has allowed me to bring here : — 

" The day above said ther was a letter read sent 
to y^ Church from y^ last gathered Church at Bos- 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 69 

ton wherin was manifested & declared ther purpos 
for to p'ceed to ordaine M"^ Increase Mather to y* 
office of a teacher unto that Church, alsoe ther 
desier is y' y^ Church of dorchester would send 
some messengers for to assist & be p'sent at that 
work." * 

Of Cotton Mather, the most famous member of 
the family, and of Samuel, your ministers, time 
does not allow me to speak ; nor, indeed, was their 
connection with Dorchester such as to give me 
special reason for so doing. I think, however, I 
have made out my case, showing that through the 
transplanting of members, the unbroken spiritual 
fellowship of two hundred and fifty years, and in 
the gift of the Mathers, we of the Dorchester First 
Church and Parish have a special right to rejoice 
with you, and reason for a special interest in your 
historic retrospect. 

One word in conclusion. The Puritan Church 
produced God-fearing men of the highest character. 
They, in turn, gave to the church of God their 
supreme devotion. If the church producing the 
men and the men serving the church had great 
faults, it was simply because their pattern was 
great. 

I, for one, should like to see the spirit of Puri- 
tanism rise phoenix-like from the ashes of history. 
Better intolerance than indifference. Superstition 
were a lesser evil than a negative liberalism. Other- 
worldliness is at any rate nobler than worldliness. 

But the spirit of Puritanism is not involved in 

* Manuscript Records, p. 59. 



70 THE SECOND CHURCH IN BOSTON 

its faults. I see in it religious reverence, personal 
dignity, and " militant sincerity." Its essence is 
embodied in the lines with which I close, — an ode 
written by a former member of the Dorchester 
church. 

Thou living Truth and vital Power ! 

We cling unto thy changeless breast, 
The phantoms of a mortal hour, 

And find immortal life and rest. 

Our fathers spoke their thought of Thee 
In words austere, with lips aglow. 

And told in prayer, on bended knee. 
The mystic tale of human woe. 

We, children of a later hour. 

Seek in soft speech and gentler tongue 

To veil the splendor of thy power. 
And do thy brooding love no wrong. 

Our fathers caught with straining ear 

The echoes of the Sinai storm ; 
And we a rarer music hear, — 

The worship of the Life new-born. 

But guard us, O thou living Lord, 

If, lost our silken lines among, 
We miss the high, heroic chord 

That through their manly accents rung. 

Shone on their brows the fervid beam 
Of truth, in human symbols given ; 

Oh, guard us, lest earth's tender sheen 
Shut off that grander light of heaven. 

Eliza Thayer Clapp. 



A 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 7 1 



ADDRESS. 

BY REV. JAMES DE NORMANDIE, D.D., 
Minister of the First Church in Roxbury, 1631 . 

MONG my books is a small volume printed in 
London in 1639, in which it is stated that 
Boston is a pleasantly situated town about two miles 
north-east of Rocksborough ; and of Rocksborough 
much is said of its beauty and richness, its fine 
houses, herds of cattle, great orchards, impaled corn- 
fields, and a beautiful stream flowing through the 
town. That is Stony Brook, which sometimes has 
flowed altogether too much. 

When we recall that this was only nine years 
after the first settlements, we see how rapid the 
growth was in spite of all the difficulties which 
beset the colonists in clearing the forests, in severe 
winters, and from hostile natives. 

Now the general features in the doctrines, modes 
of worship, social customs, and laws in these early 
churches here represented were much the same. 
There was the same solemn, strict, and universal ob- 
servance of the Sabbath. There was the same 
interest in the pulpit and the pews in long sermons 
and prayers, the same sense of judgment for every 
calamity and of providence for every success. 

In all the enterprises, dangers, privations, and 
promises of building up a new country, the church 
of the Puritans was a most conspicuous feature. 
The covenant was no unmeaning form, — to walk 



72 THE SECOND CHURCH IN BOSTON 

together by the grace of God, and to watch over one 
another for good. The spiritual watchfulness in 
these early churches knew no lapse. No papal in- 
quisition was ever keener than the Puritan's search 
for heresy or for sin, but a tender love and sym- 
pathy went with it. The atmosphere of every 
home was well known, and every lapsing brother 
or sister was brought to the open confessional or 
banished the settlement. On the Rockesburgh 
Hill, hard by the first little rough meeting-house, 
about 20 X 30 and 1 2 feet high, stood the stocks, 
guardian of peace and terror of evil-doers, where 
the offender had to stand in full view of the elect. 

The Church Records make strange reading to us ; 
but there was no hesitation in the Minister about 
putting down in black and white the praises or the 
transQ^ressions of his flock. But we see the sins 
make a small part of the volumes. Here comes out 
the stern hope of the church about erring brethren : 
" And we have come to hope that the full proceed- 
ing of discipline will doe more good than theire sin 
hath hurt." And here is their watchfulness over 
the morals of trade : " The wife of William Webb, 
— she followed baking — & through her covetuous 
mind she made light waight, after many admoni- 
shions flatly denying that after she had weighed 
her dough, she never nimed off bitts from each 
loaf, which yet four witnesses testified to be a com- 
mon, if not a practis, for all which grosse sins she 
was excommunicated. But afterwards she was 
reconciled to the church, lived Xianly, and dyed 
comfortably." 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 73 

While in such records and religious experiences 
these churches were, I take it, much the same, the 
First Church in Rockesburgh was distinguished 
from the others apparently by two interests. Its 
care for the young was most marked. Here, as far 
as any records can be found, was the first Sunday- 
school in the New World ; but its work is hardly 
that which would commend itself to the members 
of our Young People's Religious Union. 

In the first church book, under date of lo month, 
6, 1674, ^t is written, "This day we restored our 
primitive practice [showing it had been an earlier 
custom] for the training up our youth, — first, 
our male youth, in fitting season stay every Sab- 
bath after the evening exercise in the Public meet- 
ing-house, where the elders will examine their 
remembrance that day [of the sermon] any fit 
poynt of Catechise. Secondly, that our female 
youth should meet in one place, where the elders 
may examine them of their remembrance yesterday, 
& about Catechise, or what else may be con- 
venient." 

Then Eliot was beset to do something for the 
education of the young. It was a care never out of 
his mind. At one of the meetings of all the min- 
isters of this neighborhood he exclaimed with great 
fervor : " Lord, for schools everywhere among us. 
That our schools may flourish. That every mem- 
ber of this assembly may go home and procure a 
good school to be encouraged in the town where he 
lives. That before we die we may be so happy as 
to see a good school encouraged in every plantation 
of the country." 



74 THE SECOND CHURCH IN BOSTON 

It was out of this interest that the old Roxbury 
Latin School was established under the care of the 
First Church, after the type of those schools then 
so famous in England, and called "grammar 
schools," because grammar was the key of lan- 
guage, — that mysterious power by which soul 
speaks to soul. Cotton Mather says of the issue of 
this school that Roxbury has afforded more scholars 
first for the college and then for the public than 
any town of its bigness, or, if I mistake not, of 
twice its bigness, in all New England. And still 
to-day, after two hundred and fifty years, it remains 
unique and distinguished as one of the best fitting 
schools for our neighboring university. 

The other feature of the First Church was the 
missionary work of the apostle Eliot among the 
Indians. So far as I can recall, the other churches 
here represented had no interest whatever in this 
work. I am not sure that any word can be found 
in their early history referring to it. 

And so at a later period, when the anti-slavery 
times came, there is but one of these same churches 
which has a public word to say about that, — the 
courageous and godly ministry of Nathaniel Hall, of 
the First Church in Dorchester. 

There can be little question that the Puritans as 
a class cared nothing about the Indians. They 
believed they were the children of the Devil. 
They had no confidence that the Indians could be 
civilized or converted, and very early they had a 
proverb that the only good Indian was a dead 
Indian. And it is true that a large part of the 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 75 

American people still feels so toward the remnants 
of the race lingering along the fringe of our West- 
ern civilization. Just as the race is about to disap- 
pear, the awakened heart of the nation begins to 
take a better attitude. 

But Eliot believed the Indians were the lost 
tribes of Israel, and that in their language he would 
find some traces of the Hebrew, which he firmly 
believed was the language of heaven, in which by- 
God's own voice the Old Testament had been 
given to men, and which would be forever the lan- 
guao-e of the redeemed. So he began that wonder- 
ful missionary life, as all true missionary work be- 
gins, in the love of humanity; and no human 
labors were ever more earnest, devoted, and self- 
sacrificing. 

In his home, at the foot of the hill on which the 
church stands, — the same site still marked by the 
most commanding old Puritan House of God in 
New England, — he had an evening school for the 
Indians ; and during the week, or when he could 
have a spare Sunday for longer journeys, wherever 
the Indians could be gathered in wigwams, under 
spreading trees, down along the Cape, all through 
Western Massachusetts, and up to the borders of 
New Hampshire, there Eliot was to be found. 
No difficulties too great. No thought of self came 
to the surface. Every personal comfort was sur- 
rendered, every sacrifice was gladly borne. And 
then he would come back, and through the long 
night, by his tallow candle, give himself to the 
translation of the Scriptures into their language 



76 THE SECOND CHURCH IN BOSTON 

with a diligence and love which shames almost 
all records of scholarship. 

His missionary zeal was not less than Saint 
Paul's, his charity as sweet and abundant as Saint 
Francis of Assisi, and his whole life a testimony 
that the call to saintliness has not ceased and the 
possibility of it has not died out. The First Church 
of Roxbury has great reason to be proud of his 
ministry and to cherish his memory; and it still 
tries to carry on his work of converting the sur- 
rounding and unchurched heathen. 

Nearly twenty years have passed since it cele- 
brated the anniversary which gathers you together 
here this evening. We rejoice in your record as 
in our own, — that you, as we, were led into that 
movement which under Channing came to some 
of our churches with a new and richer spiritual life. 
It is an interesting fact in the history of religion 
that the flourishing condition of one church is only 
a help to all others ; and, when the spiritual life of 
one languishes, its baneful influence is felt in a 
weakening will. We bear our best greetings to 
you in grateful memories of all the life of this 
church has meant to the community for two hun- 
dred and fifty years, and join our prayers with yours 
for only increasing Christian activities and useful- 
ness for centuries without end. 

These churches have a noble history to encour- 
age them ; and now, looking not to the past, but to 
the future, the serious question is, What shall we 
do to increase our mission ? The real value of a 
church is not in its past, but in its zeal and ability 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY ']'] 

to minister to the religious needs of to-day. We 
are not like the fathers by wearing the gown and 
bands, or by subscribing merely to their doctrines, 
but by their zeal for the truth, by their love for 
humanity, and by a deeper faith in those few great 
spiritual realities which have ever been and must 
ever be the refuge and support of the human soul. 



ADDRESS. 

BY REV. GEORGE A. GORDON, D.D., 

Minister of the Third Church in Boston. 

TXT'HEN in a large family — a family of five — a 
lovely sister has arrived at the interesting 
age of eighteen, it is in order for the older sisters to 
bid her welcome to the great world of womanhood ; 
and they do so by telling her what very great 
things are before her, and for what great things she 
is indebted to them. Afterward, the younger sister 
comes, shy, lonesome, green in her immaturity, and 
stammers out her welcome. 

This church has reached an interesting period 
in its existence, and its older sisters have bidden 
her welcome ; and I think they have reminded 
her of her debt to them. And now it is my turn 
to tell you how much love and sympathy and 
hearty congratulation there are in the heart of the 
Third Church, your younger sister, for you of the 
Second Church. 

There are a great many things that are uncertain 



y^ THE SECOND CHURCH IN BOSTON 

in human affairs and in church affairs, but there 
is one thing pretty certain ; and that is that the 
record of Dr. Sewali of fifty-six years as pastor of 
the Third Church will not be broken by the pres- 
ent incumbent, and I should say with nearly the 
same certainty that the record of Increase Mather 
of sixty-two years as incumbent of this pulpit will 
not be broken by Mr. Van Ness. I am sorry for 
this, for I think that you are far better off under 
his ministry than you would be under that famous 
and rather grim old man. 

The thing that lies in my heart to say to-night 
is a word of congratulation over the treasure of 
your two hundred and fifty years of history. It is 
a treasure, taken as a whole, — an inexpressibly pre- 
cious treasure. I am not going to repeat the 
names of the old gentlemen. Many of them were 
tyrannical, and, it seems to me, not very good, on 
the whole ; but the period covered by your life as an 
ecclesiastical organization is a great period. It is 
full, as I have said, of precious treasures ; and I 
wish to indicate two or three lines along which that 
treasure may come mightily to the support of your 
life here to-day. 

In the first place, your history is wisdom. Men 
with no history are fools, and so with churches. 
There were brave men before the days of Aga- 
memnon, and there were thinkers before the preach- 
ers of to-day arrived, believers in God, seers into 
the heart of reality, devout men, great-hearted lov- 
ers of their kind ; and the sense that the past has 
seen the things that you have seen and grasped 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 79 

them and wielded them for the benefit of mankind, 
is, I think, of inexpressible value in sobering the 
intelligence and enlarging the mind of the progres- 
sive people of to-day. 

And there is a peace about that Puritan life, 
owing to the depth of its faith and the greatness 
of the truth in which it dealt, which, I think, all 
our churches should remember. The Puritan spoke 
of God and divine sovereignty and divine decrees 
and eternal righteousness and heaven and hell, 
the great issues of the moral battle in this world. 
The people were held in the grasp of great truths, 
and this was the foundation of their peace. You 
go out to sea in a yacht, and it is all very well when 
the weather is fine ; but let a north-east storm spring 
up, and the jumpings and the tossings of your 
yacht will make those on board very uncomfortable ; 
whereas, if you are on a great Atlantic liner in that 
very storm, you can feel under you a steady keel. 
Our people to-day are going through life on little 
bits of yachts, cat-boats even ; and in consequence 
there is hurry and bluster and fume and fury in their 
lives. What they want is the great elemental 
truths that the Puritan spoke and believed, — God, 
as we may apprehend him to-day, sovereignty as we 
may apprehend it to-day, universal righteousness, 
heaven, hell, all the great things that still surround 
us and constitute our moral and spiritual environ- 
ment, and that appeal to our life as they did to the 
old Puritan. We must remember that in many 
respects what James Russell Lowell said is true, 
when we think of the elevation of the Puritan ideal 



8o THE SECOND CHURCH IN BOSTON 

and the strenuousness of the Puritan devotion to 
his ideal measured against ours : — " We are scarce 
our fathers' shadows cast at noon." 

Then there is what I call the sentiment of his- 
tory, which becomes life, profound, tender, true, in- 
fluential, victorious, in the movements of to-day. 
You take this Bible. Every morning that your 
pastor reads the lesson from it, the accent of eight 
generations of serious and high-minded men and 
women is there. You sing the hymns that have 
been sung by a great body of suffering, brave, 
rejoicing people through all these years. Your 
worship, your faith, your church organization, are 
steeped through and through with humanity. To 
open your imagination to this is to allow the high, 
tender, human soul of history to enrich and sweeten 
and gladden your life. When the Bible says, O 
God, our fathers' God, does it not add something 
to our faith in God ? Does not God take on hue 
and color and power and majesty, as he comes 
through the atmosphere of our great human parent- 
age, just as the sun is glorified as it comes up 
through the rich morning atmosphere or as it goes 
from us through the gates of evening ? It is some- 
thing to have God : it is something more to have 
our fathers' God and our mothers' God, — God 
glorified through the humanity of two hundred and 
fifty years. It is a mighty possession. 

I think often of the first three churches of Bos- 
ton, — The First Church, The Second Church, and 
The Third Church. They constitute an ecclesiasti- 
cal aristocracy. I think of them as three ocean 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 8 1 

liners going from the same port. The First 
Church started a little ahead, taking a course of its 
own. The Second Church started next, and took a 
course of its own. The Third Church sailed last 
of the three, in rather rough water, and took a 
course of its own. Each has been sailing on its own 
course, through sunshine and through storm, 
through pleasant weather and through severe weath- 
er, ever since ; and, as they get toward mid-ocean, 
perhaps, they are out of sight of each other. They 
have been often out of sight of each other, and prob- 
ably an accurate historic chart would show how far 
their courses had been apart and how little they had 
seen of each other for the last century. But even 
then the same ocean is under the keels of all three, 
and the same sky with its everlasting guiding lights 
is over all three ; and the heart of each trusts the 
deep below and the deep above. And may we not 
hope that as they converge in their courses toward 
the same port, — and they are bound for the same 
port, — they will come more and more within 
sight of each other again ? And is not this meet- 
ing a sort of flag thrown out to show that they 
are beginning to sight each other again, that their 
courses are really converging ? Let us hope that for 
the remainder of the voyage the water may be good, 
and the health of the passengers good, the wisdom of 
the captains good, everything good. And, when we 
come to the close of this dispensation, may we touch 
some great, eternal reality, not unfittingly symbolized 
by the port of peace, where the three stately liners 
shall anchor side by side. God bless you, men and 



82 THE SECOND CHURCH IN BOSTON 

women of The Second Church in Boston. God 
bless your leader and those he leads. And take, I 
beg you, into your hearts the large, thankful, con- 
gratulatory, loving greeting of your younger sister 
and neighbor. The Third Church of Boston. 



THE WORK OF WOMEN. 



/-pVHE morning of Monday, November 20, was allotted 
1 to the Second Church Branch of the Women's 
National Alliance, and the following programme was fol- 
lowed : — 

©rgan Uolimtarg. 

5^Smn 133, Colchester, 1685. 

SmacotUE 1)2 tbc PtESitient Mrs. E. H. Brigham 

'i^xamx ^^^- Thomas Van Ness 

^gmn IC6, Coronation, 1793. 

Subject : What Women have done, in the United States, since 
the Founding of The Second Ciiurch in Boston : 

In 3Lit£rature Mrs. Mary P. Wells Smith 

In iStiuration Mrs. Emily A. Fifield 

Bob, selected Mrs. W. H. Prior 

In pi)aanti)top2 ^^s- ^^^^ Gannett Wells 

In STbeolagp. Rev. Anna Garlin Spencer 

^omn 21, Bethany. 

Benetitction Rev. Edward A. Horton 

At the close of the exercises an informal reception 
was held in the church parlor, to which all present were 
cordially invited. 



WHAT WOMEN HAVE DONE IN LIT- 
ERATURE IN THE UNITED STATES 
SINCE 1649. 

BY MARY P. WELLS SMITH. 

nr^HE Second Church of Boston was founded in 
'"' 1649. Girls were not admitted to the public 
schools of Boston until 1 789, one hundred and forty 
years later, when they were permitted to go half the 
year, in summer only. Writing was not considered 
a necessary accomplishment for "females," even in 
the early part of this century. Not one woman in 
a dozen could write her name at the Revolutionary 
period. The Puritan estimate of literary women is 
illustrated by the account in John Winthrop's His- 
tory of New England of Mr. Hopkins, "Governor 
of Hartford upon the Connecticut," who brought to 
Boston his wife, " a godly young woman and of 
special parts," who had lost her reason, Winthrop 
says, " by occasion of giving herself wholly to read- 
ing and writing." " If," he adds, " she had attended 
to her household affairs, and such things as belong 
to women, and not gone out of her way and calling 
to meddle in such things as are proper for men, 
whose minds are stronger, she had kept her wits, 
and might have improved them usefully and honor- 
ably in the place God had set her." 

The love-letters of Margaret Winthrop to herhus- 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 85 

band, the vivid narrative of her captivity by Mrs. 
Mary Rowlandson, the lively account of her perilous 
journey from Boston to New York by the sharp 
quill of Madam Sarah Knight, and other writings 
which have been preserved, show that our Puritan 
foremothers were far from destitute of native ca- 
pacity. But overpowering indeed must have been 
the literary impulse in a woman's soul impelling 
her to authorship under the prevailing adverse 
conditions. The marvel is, not that the first cen- 
tury of our period shows so few authoresses, but 
that it records any. Yet the first person to publish 
a volume of verse in New England was a woman, 
Mistress Anne Bradstreet, the pioneer American 
authoress. Married at sixteen and the mother of 
eight children, Mrs. Bradstreet's days could hardly 
have been those of literary leisure. But her poems, 
published in London in 1650 under the title "The 
Tenth Muse lately sprung up in America, by a 
Gentlewoman in those Parts," compare favorably 
with others of her time. She prefaced them with 
these apologetic lines : — 

" I am obnoxious to each carping tongue, 
Who says my hand a needle better fits. 
A Poet's pen all scorn I should thus wrong, 

For such despite they cast on Female wits. 
If what I do prove well, it won't advance, 
They'll say it's stolen, or else it was by chance." 

She closes with, 

" Men can do best, and women know it well. 
Pre-eminence in all and each is yours. 
Yet grant some small acknowledgment of ours." 



86 THE SECOND CHURCH IN BOSTON 

Either her seemly humility or her social position 
disarmed criticism, for Cotton Mather graciously 
said that her poems " afforded a grateful entertain- 
ment unto the ingenious" ; and Nathaniel Ward, in 
his poetical preface to the posthumous volume of 
her poems, makes Apollo exclaim, on being pre- 
sented by Minerva with Mrs. Bradstreet's book : — 

" I muse whither at length these girls will go. 
It half revives my chill, frost-bitten blood, 
To see a woman once do aught that's good ; 
And, chode by Chaucer's boots and Homer's furs, 
Let men look to't lest women wear the spurs." 

The time distracted from Mrs. Bradstreet's lit- 
erary labors by her eight children cannot be deemed 
lost, when we know that their descendants include 
such illustrious names as William Ellery Channing, 
Joseph S. Buckminster, Richard H. Dana, and 
Oliver Wendell Holmes ; and we can well believe 
that the Rev. John Norton, in his " Dirge for the 
Tenth Muse," did not exaggerate when he wrote 
of her, — 

" Her breast was a brave palace, a Broad-street 
Where all heroic thoughts did meet. 
Where nature such a tenement had ta'en. 
That other souls, to hers, dwelt in a lane." 

Jane Turrell, daughter of the Rev. Benjamin Col- 
man, wrote verse, collected after her early death at 
twenty-seven by her husband in a volume called 
" Memoirs of the Life and Death of the Pious and 
Ingenious Mistress Jane Turrell." Elizabeth Fer- 
guson, of Philadelphia in 1756, when seventeen 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 87 

years old, translated the whole of " Telemaque " 
into blank verse, as a consolation under a disap- 
pointment in love. It was never published, was 
perhaps discreetly "hushed up" among her friends. 
A literary phenomenon difficult to explain was 
Phillis Wheatley, a negro slave brought from Africa 
when eight years old, and sold in the Boston slave 
market. A volume of her verse published in 1773 
has been pronounced " a very respectable echo of 
Pope." Elizabeth Singer Rowe was also an es- 
teemed poetess of this generation, favorably alluded 
to by Sewall as " Philomela." Her name seems 
to close the list of pre-Revolutionary authoresses, 
unless we accept the pleasant tradition which 
makes Mistress Vergoose the immortal benefactress 
of childhood. 

Women shared in the general awakening of the 
American intellect born of the Revolution. The 
first woman in this country to devote herself to 
a literary life was Hannah Adams. Obtaining her 
education alone, chiefly from reading books in her 
father's shop, she brought out in 1784 her first 
book, " Views of Religious Opinions," followed by 
a History of New England, History of the Jews, 
etc. She ranks with Belknap and Abiel Holmes 
as a leading historical writer of the period. We 
realize the deprivation suffered by a woman of 
literary tastes in her time, when told that all her 
life Hannah Adams looked eagerly forward to 
Heaven as a place where her thirst for knowledge 
might be gratified. 

Abigail Adams little dreamed of ranking among 



88 THE SECOND CHURCH IN BOSTON 

the " black swans," as she says literary women are 
considered, though she quotes with approval a 
"generous writer," who says, "To woman's natural 
perfections add but the perfection of acquired 
learning, what polite and charming creatures would 
they prove ! " Her letters reveal a woman of ster- 
ling ability, and are invaluable as a domestic pict- 
ure of the times, an inner history of the Revolution 
possible only to the pen of a bright woman. Her 
friend Mrs. Mercy Warren, by whose Plymouth 
fireside many political plans originated, when sev- 
enty-seven years old, wrote the first history of the 
Revolution, especially important as the work of a 
contemporary. 

The first novels written in America were by 
women. Mrs. Susanna Rawson wrote "Charlotte 
Temple," a melancholy tale, wet by the tears of 
countless readers. Mrs, Rawson also felt obliged 
to appease male critics with the usual servile apolo- 
gies, in these lines : — 

" Know you not that woman's proper sphere 
Is the domestic walk ? To interfere 
With politics, divinity, or law 
As much-deserved ridicule would draw 
On woman as the learned, grave divine 
Cooking the soup on which he means to dine, 
Or formal judge, the winders on his knee, 
Preparing silk to work embroidery." 

Mrs. Tabitha Tenney wrote " Female Quixotism ; 
or. Extravagant Adventures of Dorcasina Sheldon," 
a satire on the romanticism then prevalent among 
young women, which had great vogue. It must 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 89 

be remembered that fiction had its birth in Eng- 
land but httle prior to this time, with Richard- 
son's " Pamela." Another early novel was " Eliza 
Wharton," by Hannah W. Foster. In it, as the 
taste of the time demanded, the " tear of sensibil- 
ity " oft shone in the eye of the hero, as he " with 
ardor pressed to his lips " the hand of the ever- 
blushing heroine. To this era belongs also Sarah 
Morton, styled by her friend Robert Treat Paine 
" the American Sappho." 

The fruits of the admission of girls to the public 
schools were soon manifest. In the last decade of 
the eighteenth century were born Eliza Leslie, 
Maria Brooks, or " Maria del Occidente," as 
Southey named her, Caroline Oilman, Sarah J. 
Hale, Emma Willard, Hannah F. Gould, Lydia H. 
Sigourney, and Catharine Sedgwick. With these 
honored names feminine authorship in America 
fairly begins. Eliza Leslie was apparently the pi- 
oneer writer for children, with her stories " For 
Emma," " For Adelaide," etc. She wrote bright 
satiric sketches for Graham s and Godeys, those 
popular precursors of the modern magazine swarm, 
and edited " The Gift," the best among the annuals 
then so fashionable. She also wrote " The Be- 
havior Book," a work so replete with sound sense 
that young girls might still learn things worth 
knowing from its perusal, even if they found some 
of its teachings slightly antiquated, as where Miss 
Leslie advises young ladies, when walking with 
their superiors, " always to go a little behind." 
Many a noble woman was trained on the " Be- 



90 THE SECOND CHURCH IN BOSTON 

havior Book." Caroline Gilman wrote much and 
acceptably in the Rose, a magazine established 
and edited by her in Charleston, to which she later 
added the Rosebud, one of the first weekly ju- 
venile papers in the country. Sarah J. Hale's un- 
flagging industry made her the prototype of the 
modern literary worker. She edited Godey s 
Ladies Book, wrote tales, poems, and books, and 
published " The Woman's Record " and " Sketches 
of all Distinguished Women from the Beginning till 
A.D. 1850," two books indicating that the apolo- 
getic period for literary women was passing. 
Emma Willard found time from her educational 
labors to write books of travel, text-books, and 
poems, including one not yet forgotten, " Rocked 
in the cradle of the deep." We can but think 
fondly of Hannah Gould's natural, graceful poems, 
so dear to childhood. 

The two leading names of this period, however, 
for years ranking first among American author- 
esses, were those of Miss Sedgwick, and Mrs. Sig- 
ourney, " the American Hemans," as it was the 
fashion to call her. Mrs. Sigourney published fifty 
volumes. Her poems seldom appeal to modern 
taste ; and we are reminded in perusing them of 
Mrs. Dodge's saying, that " Pegasus generally feels 
inclined to pace towards a graveyard the moment 
he feels a side-saddle on his back." But a melan- 
choly sentimentality was the literary fashion of her 
time. Every one wrote pensive odes "To Tears," 
" To Memory," " To Melancholy," " To Twilight." 
J. G. Percival wrote an ode of eighty-two lines, 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 9 1 

in one of the annuals " To Consumption," begin- 
ning, 

"There is a sweetness in woman's decay." 

Mrs. Sigourney's poems had immense popularity, 
and their pure, devout spirit helped many souls. In 
time-embrowned " Friendship's Offerings," it is her 
poems that we oftenest find scored by the faded 
pencil-marks of long since vanished hands. 

It is unnecessary to mention " The Linwoods " 
and the other well-known works of Miss Sedgwick, 
eminently stories with a purpose. She aimed di- 
rectly to help and improve the world; and her 
cheerful, sensible tales exerted a wide and always 
wholesome influence. Two literary phenomena of 
the early century were the Davidson sisters, whose 
juvenile efforts were published, and even won 
Southey's praise. There is a hectic flush on the 
poor little verses, and we are not surprised that the 
young poetesses laid down their lyres forever at the 
ages of sixteen and fourteen. Other authoresses 
born early in the century were Caroline Lee Hentz; 
Ann S. Stephens, a noted magazine writer and 
editor; Frances Sargent Osgood; Ellen Sturgis 
Hooper, who wrote for the Dial " I slept, and 
dreamed that life was beauty " ; Louisa J. Hall, who 
wrote " Down hill the path of age ? Oh, no " ; Amelia 
Welby; Emily Judson, better known as "Fanny 
Forrester " ; Mrs. Parton, or " Fanny Fern," whose 
pungent squibs originated a wave of vegetable 
pseudonyms ; Mrs. Whitcher, the inimitable " Widow 
Bedott " ; the voluminous Mrs. Southworth ; Louisa 



92 THE SECOND CHURCH IN BOSTON 

Tuthill ; Elizabeth Ellet, author of " American 
Women in the Revolution " ; Delia Bacon, made 
famous by the Baconian - Shakspere controversy; 
Caroline M. Kirkland, whose keenly observant 
tales of Western life are still enjoyable for native 
humor and as pictures of what already seems an in- 
credible past, the West, of which Dickens's " Ameri- 
can Notes " and Mrs. Trollope's diatribe were 
hardly caricatures ; and Susan Warner, author of 
those immensely popular tales, " The Wide, Wide 
World " and " Queechy." We mark a notable 
change of ideas in reading Miss Welby's poem, 
" The Old Maid." After our tenderest sympathies 
have been roused for this unfortunate, who has 
outlived all making life worth while, it is a shock 
to the modern mind to read, " It is her thirtieth 
birthday." 

In 1802 was born a woman who left an impress 
on the world, — Lydia Maria Child, a notable writer 
as well as a woman of delightful personality. 

" What a wealth would it bring to the narrow and sour, 
Could they be as a Child but for one little hour ! " 

Passing briefly by her excellent stories, " Hobo- 
mok," " The Rebels," in which appeared the famous 
speech of James Otis, often quoted as by Otis him- 
self, " Philothea," and the rest, we note that again 
was a woman a pioneer. Mrs. Child wrote the first 
book against slavery in this country, her " Appeal 
for that Class of Americans called Africans." Hig- 
ginson says that the perusal of this " wonderfully 
clear, convincing book," with Miss Martineau's 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 93 

kindred work, made him an Abolitionist. Undis- 
mayed by the decline in literary prestige and profit 
caused by this publication, Mrs. Child moved to 
New York in 1 841, to edit with her husband the 
National Anti-slavery Standard. Incidentally, she 
wrote her " Letters from New York." She was a 
leader in juvenile literature, not only in her books 
for children, but in her popular Jtivenile Miscel- 
lany. Her useful life extended late into the 
century, and she was occupied in its last years by 
compiling " Looking towards Sunset." 

Another woman whose helpful life nearly covered 
the century was Elizabeth P. Peabody, to whose 
writings we chiefly owe the introduction of the 
Kindergarten System in our country, and to whose 
" Recollections " we are indebted for a closer view 
of Channing. With George Ripley she was the 
business manager of the Dial. 

To the early part of the century also belongs the 
great name among American literary women, that 
of Margaret Fuller D'Ossoli. Born when feminine 
scholars were almost unknown, her education was 
the product, not of the inadequate schools of her 
time, but of arduous solitary labor, impelled by an 
innate thirst to know. She was ranked as equal 
friend and co-laborer by Emerson and the other in- 
tellectual leaders. She wrote editorials and literary 
reviews, as yet unsurpassed, for the Tribune under 
Greeley, helped introduce the study of German 
literature in the country, was the first editor of the 
Dial, and a leader in the Transcendental move- 
ment, that glorious New England renaissance, the 



94 THE SECOND CHURCH IN BOSTON 

revival of the life of the spirit. Her Boston con- 
versations may safely be pronounced the remote 
beginning of the woman's club movement. In 
writing of these proposed conversations to Mrs. 
Ripley, she said, — 

"The advantages of a weekly meeting for conver- 
sation might be great enough to repay attendance 
if they only supplied a point of union to well-edu- 
cated and thinking women in a city which, with 
great pretensions to mental refinement, boasts at 
present nothing of the kind, and where I have heard 
many of mature age wish for some such place of 
stimulus and cheer." 

These conversations, on such topics as the His- 
tory of Religions, the Fine Arts, the Influence of 
Women, Ethics, Education, etc., opened a new 
world to women. To know the literary world of 
Miss Fuller's time, turn over the pages of the New 
York Mirror, edited by N. P. Willis, and note the 
nauseating strain of compliment to women, the 
doubtless well-meant but almost insulting tone of 
condescending patronage. " To our fair and ever- 
gentle countrywomen is mainly to be attributed the 
success of the Mirror,''' purrs the editor. " The 
ladies are all constancy and devotion. We would 
rather cater for the edification of one fair and gentle 
spirit than for a host of the bearded and coated 
tribe." He says of Mrs. Oilman's Southern Rose, 
" It unfolds its blushing and graceful buds in 
Charleston." With infinite contempt Margaret 
Fuller tossed behind her these meaningless compli- 
ments, demanding that a woman's work be judged 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 95 

purely on its merit as work. The writings she left 
are no measure of her literary rank. What she was, 
not what she wrote, has made her name a stimulus 
and inspiration to American women. 

A sign of the times was the Lowell Ofermg 
published by the factory girls of Lowell, originating 
in Lucy Larcom's home, her first poems appearing 
in it. A collection from its pages, published in 
London in 1849, was well named "Mind among 
the Spindles." Women's minds in America were 
indeed awakening, not only among the spindles, 
but behind the needle and the broom. 

There is still with us one who can say of the 
incredible changes our century has brought in 
woman's opportunities, " All of it I saw, part of it I 
was," — Julia Ward Howe. As lecturer, as edi- 
tor with Dr. Howe of the Commonwealth, as a 
writer, she has borne noble part in uplifting, not 
only her sex, but humanity. It was her high privi- 
lege to voice the patriotism of a nation in her 
glorious " Battle Hymn of the Republic." Now, 
" eighty years young," her recent delightful volume 
of " Reminiscences " shows unabated mental force. 
Her contemporary, Harriet Beecher Stowe, was 
inspired to write the powerful story " Uncle Tom's 
Cabin," which wrought so mightily for the freedom 
of a race, which, translated into all languages, dram- 
atized in many forms, is still, like John Brown's 
soul, " marching on," pleading for the down-trodden. 

A little later were born such well-known writers 
as Maria Lowell, Caroline Cheseborough, Caroline 
A. Mason, Ednah D. Cheney, Elizabeth Stoddard, 



96 THE SECOND CHURCH IN BOSTON 

Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney, Mrs. Lippincott, or " Grace 
Greenwood," Alice and Phoebe Gary, Lucretia P. 
Hale, Caroline H. Dall, Lucy Larcom, Rose Terry 
Cooke, Margaret Preston, Julia Dorr. Some of 
these writers are still working on with that un- 
diminished mental power which is the surest wit- 
ness of the spirit's unending life. 

By the time we reach the thirties, the list swells 
perceptibly ; and we have such familiar names as 
Helen Hunt Jackson, Celia Thaxter, Charlotte 
Fiske Bates, Mrs. Piatt, Emily Dickinson, Harriet 
McEwen Kimball, Edna Dean Proctor, Louise 
Chandler Moulton, Marion Harland, Augusta 
Evans, Mary L. Booth, Margaret Sangster, Mary 
Mapes Dodge, Helen Campbell, Mrs. Croly, or 
"Jennie June," Rebecca Harding Davis, Jane G. 
Austin, Amelia Barr, " Gail Hamilton," Olive 
Thorne Miller, Kate Sanborn, Kate Field, Nancy 
Priest, author of "Over the River," Elizabeth 
Prentiss, author of "Stepping Heavenward," 
Amanda Douglas, Harriet Prescott Spofford, 
Mrs. Annie Fields, Katherine Wormeley, Eliza- 
beth Gary Agassiz. Now, too, was born Louisa M. 
Alcott, the story of whose brave life struggle, as 
told by Mrs. Cheney, has inspired many young 
women. She revolutionized juvenile literature, and 
won that sweetest fame, the faithful love of child 
hearts. Said a little girl in Colorado lately, " When 
I go to heaven, after I have found the family, I 
shall hunt up Miss Alcott." 

It is instructive to note, with each added decade, 
how surely woman's intellectual achievement has 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 97 

kept pace with her educational opportunities, and 
how the ranks of writers swell as we go on. Pre- 
cisely half a century ago, in 1850, was held the 
first Woman's Rio^hts Convention, and that amta- 
tion begun which even its opponents must admit 
has immeasurably changed for the better the 
position of women. At this time, too, girls first 
received a high-school education. It is not strange 
that in this last half-century the list of successful 
writers has grown, until it is impossible even to 
mention the names of those upon whose work we 
should delight to dwell, did time permit. Among 
such names readily occurring to us are Elizabeth 
Stuart Phelps Ward, Constance Fenimore Wool- 
son, Maria Pool, Miss Woolsey, Mrs. Burnett, 
Mary Hallock Foote, Mary H. Catherwood, Mrs. 
Holley, or "Josiah Allen's Wife," Mrs. Custer, 
Mrs. John and Mrs. Schuyler Van Rensselaer, 
Mrs. Burton Harrison, Anna C. Brackett, Sarah 
K. Bolton, Harriet W. Preston, Emma Lazarus, 
Alice Williams Brotherton, Sarah O. Jewett, Mary 
Wilkins, Alice Brown, Kate Douglas Wiggin, 
Edith M. Thomas, Agnes Repplier, Margaret 
Deland, Miss Murfree, Laura S. Richards and 
Maud Howe Elliott, Alice Morse Earle, Anne H. 
Wharton, Sarah MacLean Pratt, Anna Bowman 
Dodd, Elizabeth W. Latimer, Katharine Lee 
Bates, Eliza Orne White, Clara Erskine Clement, 
"Eleanor Putnam," the Goodale sisters, Ruth Mc- 
Enery Stuart, Lillian Whiting, Kate Tannatt 
Woods, Louise I. Guiney, Alice Stone Blackwell, 
Helen M. Winslow, Charlotte Perkins Stetson, 



98 THE SECOND CHURCH IN BOSTON 

Grace Ellery Channing, Molly Elliot Seawell, 
Mary Johnston. The list of women who are doing 
good literary work in various lines extends in- 
definitely. 

Colleges have so recently been opened to women 
that the fruits of university education are not yet 
garnered; but in every magazine and publisher's 
list the names of new and hitherto unknown au- 
thoresses greet us, attached to work that would 
once have assured the writer's fame. One is 
sometimes tempted to look wistfully back to Han- 
nah More's time, when Dr. Johnson and his 
friends ranked literary effort by a woman with the 
phenomenon of a dog walking on his hind legs! 
Would the editors of the Atlantic Monthly to-day 
accept " Coelebs in Search of a Wife," or the 
editor of the Christian Register eagerly jump at 
" Thoughts on the Manners of the Great " ? It 
took so little to give a woman literary repute then ! 
But, as Tennyson said to George Eliot, " Every- 
body writes so well now ! " 

Women first venturing to act as reporters for 
the press encountered the inevitable ridicule at- 
tending women pioneers in any new field of effort ; 
but now many newspapers employ bright young 
women on their staff, and journalism is accepted as 
another activity open to women. There is great 
literary activity everywhere among our women. 

The phenomenal development of women's clubs 
in the last quarter of the century is a sign of the 
times not to be overlooked. There are now two 
thousand women's clubs in the United States, di- 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 99 

vided among thirty States, bringing a degree of 
intellectual culture within the range of most women, 
and, through women thus aroused to intellectual 
pleasures, benefiting whole communities. The fol- 
lowing is only one instance of such influence. But 
a few years ago there was no public library in 
Montgomery, Ala., and almost no private ones, this 
dearth at the capital auguring even worse depriva- 
tion throughout the State. Now Alabama has fifty 
women's clubs ; and their State Federation at Mont- 
gomery is sending out travelling libraries into the 
obscurest nooks of the State, books eagerly received 
and read. " Into almost colorless lives, barren of 
any diverting interest," says a recent report, "come 
these books, with a revelation of broader thinking 
nobler ambition, greater worlds, and perhaps, best 
of all, a harmless recreation." 

In concluding this hasty review of woman's liter- 
ary effort from the beginning of our country's his- 
tory, we may ask, How much of this mass of writing 
will survive the test of time ? Little, if any. But 
the same is true of all writing of the period. 
Happy the century that produces even one book or 
poem that lives ! Yet this labor has not been lost. 
The writers have, in remarkable degree, been 
women of noble personality, helping the world in 
many ways besides with their pens. Their writ- 
ings have been pure and good, breathing high 
aspirations. Each in her way has distinctly helped 
give this old, young world of ours its needed 
push on and up, and every woman achieving 
anything of worth has helped open the way for 



lOO THE SECOND CHURCH IN BOSTON 

younger workers pressing on behind. At the end 
of our century women at last share full intellectual 
opportunity. Their effort has at least borne this 
fruit: women have achieved a standing place. 
They face the twentieth century, ready to begin. 



WHAT WOMEN HAVE DONE IN 
EDUCATION. 

BY MRS. EMILY A. FIFIELD. 

TXrHEN the committee invited a woman to 
' speak on such a mighty subject as " What 
Women of the United States have done for Edu- 
cation during the Last Two Hundred and Fifty 
Years," they could not have realized what an op- 
portunity it would afford to occupy the whole 
morning, to the exclusion of every other speaker. 

The temptation is great to do more than general- 
ize, so many are the delightful and interesting by- 
paths of history and reminiscence leading from the 
central topic of education. 

The regulation history of the United States up to 
to-day contains little about the work of women in 
any department, but we all know that they have had 
a hand in affairs, all the same ; and, when the his- 
tory of the next century is written, both women 
and education will begin with capitals. 

The subject naturally divides itself into two 
periods, before and after 1800. There is little of 
tradition or history to tell of the first. During the 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY lOI 

colonial times, women as well as men were helping 
in the struggle for daily bread, and later in laying 
the foundations of the republic. 

Warfare with Indians, clearing wild forest lands, 
the establishment of industries and constant devo- 
tion to material conditions, with no art and no 
literature to beautify and uplift their lives, but every- 
thing done under the shadow of a stern theology, — 
this fs the story of the colonial period. 

Yet the Colonial epoch is called the heroic period 
of our annals ; and during these years the free church, 
the free school, the town meeting, became distinctive 
institutions. Some one has said, " Without the 
training of such institutions, successful colonial re- 
sistance would have been impossible ; and, without 
New England, this training would not have been." 
It was the Puritan spirit which awakened the sen- 
timent of independence, and the pioneer work of 
New England which secured that independence. 

John Adams declared the five elements of New 
England civilization to be " free labor, a free church, 
the district school, town meeting, and training day " ; 
and these, carried to all parts of our country, have 
been the foundations of American education and 
citizenship. 

In Massachusetts as early as 1647 schools had 
been begun in nearly all the towns, but other States 
varied ; and in New York as late as 1806 there were 
only private schools, no college, no academy, and no 
public schools. The teachers of the schools were 
men. All of them were scholars, and most of them 
had been clergymen. Yet younger children must 



I02 THE SECOND CHURCH IN BOSTON 

all have been taught by women, as from the earliest 
days we read of the dame school, already an Eng- 
lish institution. 

" The good dame, as she knits or sews or spins, 
listens to each child in turn as he calls the letters 
in their order. She tells him stories from the Bible, 
and strives with moral precepts to bring him up in 
the fear and admonition of the Lord." 

Such was Sarah Knight, who came to Norwich, 
Conn., in 1698, and moved to Boston early in the 
eighteenth century. As a famous schoolmistress, 
she obtained the title of Madam. She is described 
as a " woman of considerable distinction." A many- 
sided character, she possessed to an unusual degree 
great energy and good education. She wrote poetry 
and diaries, speculated in Indian lands, and at dif- 
ferent times, kept a tavern, managed a shop of 
merchandise, and cultivated a farm. In 1705 she 
opened a school for children, and under her instruc- 
tion Dr. Franklin and Samuel Mather secured 
their first rudiments of education. She was highly 
spoken of by Dr. Cotton Mather as a " woman of 
good wit and pleasant humor." This same Madam 
Knight in 1 704 made a journey on horseback from 
Boston to New York to claim some property be- 
longing to her husband. A perilous journey like 
this, of six days, was a tremendous undertaking for 
a lone woman a hundred and ninety years ago, when 
even men would not start on a journey of a few miles 
without asking for prayers before they set out ; and 
the diary of her travels is to-day considered of im- 
portance and interest, as giving a picture of the times, 
the manners, and the condition of the country. 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY IO3 

As population scattered, women were more gen- 
erally employed to teach neighborhood schools for 
a few weeks or months at a time. For example, in 
Northfield, Mass., which in 1721 was far out on the 
frontier, the first teacher was Mrs. Elizabeth Field, 
the wife of the village smith. She had a class of 
young children twenty-two weeks in the warm sea- 
son at fourpence a week. While teaching, she 
made shirts for the Indians at eightpence each, 
breeches for her husband's brother at a shilling and 
sixpence a pair, and cared for her four young chil- 
dren. This is history. 

But women were not formally recognized as 
teachers until after the Revolution, and the educa- 
tion of women was very generally neglected. To 
quote Mrs. Abigail Adams, one of the most highly 
cultivated women of her time " at the close of 
the century, female education in the best families 
went no further than writing and arithmetic, and 
in some few instances music and dancing." 

It is true that the standard of education was not 
high even for men. The twenty-five colleges in 
the United States in 1800 were little more than 
high schools, the graduates were few in number, 
and there were no libraries. 

George Ticknor, writing of these early years, said 
that good school-books were rare even in Boston. 
A copy of Euripides could not be bought at any 
bookseller's, nor a German book be found in the 
college at Cambridge. 

The academies, however, added to the educa- 
tional advantages then to be obtained, and from the 



I04 THE SECOND CHURCH IN BOSTON 

establishment of Dummer Academy in 1761 to the 
present day have fulfilled an important mission. 
By the end of the century these academies were 
to be found in almost every State, both North and 
South. Among these was a school in Hingham 
founded by Madam Sarah Derby, who died in 
1 790, leaving the land and ample provision for the 
school, which in 1797 was incorporated by act of 
the General Court as Derby Academy. 

As early as 1 745 the Moravians had established 
schools for girls in Pennsylvania and North Caro- 
lina, and the Penn Charter School of Philadelphia 
admitted both sexes on equal terms. In New Eng- 
land among the earliest schools for girls was Dr. 
Dwight's Young Ladies' Academy at Greenfield, 
Conn., and the Medford School near Boston; but 
it was fifty years after the Revolution before girls 
acquired equal privileges with the boys in the 
schools of the larger towns. The Revolution gave 
a new impulse to many concerns, and public sen- 
timent was changing regarding the education of 
women. A protest of feeling against the immense 
disparity between the education of boys and girls 
had already begun. 

With the dawn of the nineteenth century three 
stars of the first magnitude shone out of the morn- 
ing sky, and the story of girls' schools in the 
United States became interwoven with the lives of 
three women whose names and work have become 
historical. 

Mrs. Emma Willard, who is considered a pioneer 
in the education of women, taught first a young 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY IO5 

ladies' school in Vermont, and in 1821 founded 
the Troy Female Seminary, which was a great 
advance in the scope and conception of the acad- 
emies of that day. This school was an unparalleled 
success, and has educated more than five thousand 
pupils. 

Among other things Mrs. Willard introduced 
the study of physiology, and so great was the 
innovation that at the examination or commence- 
ment, the entire audience, shocked at the indeli- 
cacy of teaching such a subject to girls, rose and 
left the room. At her school also occurred the first 
public examination, of a girl in geometry, for Mrs. 
Willard attached great importance to the study of 
mathematics. 

In the year after the opening of the Troy Acad- 
emy, Miss Catherine Beecher at Hartford began 
her higher school for young women, which for ten 
years was so successful that it attracted pupils 
from all over the Union. As teacher and author, 
Miss Beecher was for forty years an influential 
spirit in educational matters. 

At the same time Mary Lyon, whose name 
should always be held in honor, was teaching in 
New Hampshire, and hoping for a school which 
should be to young women what a college was to 
young men. Together with Miss Zilpah Grant, 
she taught a school at Derry, N.H., and then one 
at Ipswich, Mass., and at last, in 1837, by patient 
self-sacrifice and persistent devotion, founded Mount 
Holyoke Seminary, the first chartered institution 
to hold permanent funds for the education of 
women. 



I06 THE SECOND CHURCH IN BOSTON 

As the colleges owed their origin to the desire 
of the people for learned ministers, so these schools 
were religious schools, with systematic Bible study 
and a devotional spirit pervading all the work. 
Beyond this, however, these schools were designed 
to give a solid, extensive, and well-balanced English 
and classical education, — for culture, and not for 
accomplishments. 

It has been said that it is to these early semi- 
naries that the historian must look to account for 
the great moral reforms of the century, which took 
so deep a hold on New England life. Not only 
did Mary Lyon send out Harriet Newell and Mrs. 
Judson as missionaries to the heathen, but from 
these schools came the strongest workers against 
intemperance and slavery. From them, too, was 
scattered the idea of the higher education of women 
all over the country, and from them went out 
hundreds of teachers into the little school-houses of 
the land. 

As the colleges produced men of courage, trained 
intelligence and intellectual force, fit to be statesmen 
and leaders in national affairs, so these schools 
filled an illustrious part in the development of the 
moral and intellectual powers of the women of the 
day. 

A little later in the century, two other stars 
appeared of wonderful brilliancy. One of these 
was the rare conversationist, reformer, and phil- 
anthropist, as well as teacher, Margaret Fuller, 
whom Emerson, Channing, and James Freeman 
Clarke have each honored with a Memoir. As a 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY IO7 

teacher of languages in Boston and as principal of 
the Green Street School in Providence, R.I., Mar- 
garet Fuller was regarded as unusually excellent; 
but her great work in teaching was the conversa- 
tion classes for women held in Boston, in which 
philosophical and social subjects were studied and 
discussed, and which have been regarded as the 
beginning of the modern movement in behalf of 
women's rights. She was a leader in introducing 
to Americans a knowledge of German literature 
and philosophy, and there is no doubt of the im- 
press she made upon her generation. 

Quite different was Maria Mitchell, who yet 
gained a world-wide reputation as teacher and stu- 
dent. While teachino^ school in Nantucket, she 
assisted her father, one of our early astronomers, 
making careful observations by herself and devot- 
ing time to the examination of nebulae and comets. 
In 1847 she discovered a comet, for which dis- 
covery she received a gold medal from the King of 
Denmark. In 1865 she became Professor of Astron- 
omy at Vassar College, later received the degree of 
LL.D. from Dartmouth and Columbia, and was the 
first woman to be elected to the Academy of Arts 
and Sciences. Professor Mitchell was prominent 
in movements tending to elevate woman's work, 
beinsf President of the American Association for 
the Advancement of Women. Like Mary Somer- 
ville in England, she was an outpost in a new field 
for such advancement. 

In a similar way, at a later day. Professor Ellen 
Richards, the first woman student at the Massachu- 



I08 THE SECOND CHURCH IN BOSTON 

setts Institute of Technology, has led the advance in 
woman's work in the chemical laboratory, and made 
it apparent that there is a sphere for women in the 
study of Household Art and Domestic Science. 

If this paper were written to tell what has been 
done for women instead of by them, it would now 
be the time to speak of the great work of Horace 
Mann and other men of his period; but it must 
suffice to say that each year saw some social barrier 
and some prejudice swept away from the educa- 
tional pathway, and that both men and women by 
their efforts and example contributed largely to this. 
From this time distinguished educators came, like 
Leonids, each leaving its trail of light. 

In 1852 Mrs. Carl Schurz came to the United 
States, and founded among the Germans in Wis- 
consin a kindergarten, — " a school for young chil- 
dren conducted on the theory that education should 
be begun by gratifying and cultivating the normal 
aptitude for exercise, play, observation, imitation, 
and construction," the function of education being 
to develop the faculties by arousing voluntary ac- 
tivity. The name was given by Friedrich Froebel, 
who introduced this method of training in rooms 
opening on a garden. Mrs. Schurz was herself " an 
adept in the theory, and expert in practice by at- 
tending: con amove Froebel's own lectures and kin- 
dergarten in Hamburg." 

Through Mrs. Schurz, Elizabeth Peabody be- 
came acquainted with the kindergarten idea, and at 
length went to Europe to study the system for her- 
self. She was one of the earliest as well as one of 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY IO9 

the most persistent advocates of its merits, and was 
the pioneer in Boston, opening a school in 1859, 
which was maintained for many years. Miss Pea- 
body's whole life was given to education. To her is 
due much of the highest religious, intellectual, and 
moral influence of Boston, as well as the wide-spread 
knowledge of Froebel's system. 

The kindergarten was a new influence, a new in- 
stitution in American education, and the interest 
being communicated to other cities, they, too, be- 
came centres for the work. 

In 1870 Mrs. Kriege and her daughter, straight 
from the training school founded by Froebel, 
opened what has been called the first true kinder- 
garten. A year later Miss Boelte, afterward Mrs. 
Kraus-Boelte, was made director of a kinderofarten 
in New York. In this school Miss Susan Blow was 
a pupil, and on her graduation opened a kinder- 
garten in St. Louis, and became a prominent leader 
among kindergartners. 

The first kindergartens in the United States were 
private, but they were soon undertaken for the poor 
and uncared for, and the work of women in the 
charity kindergartens of San Francisco, Chicago, 
Philadelphia, and Boston, has been immense in 
applying the best influences and the best teaching 
to the neglected classes. In this direction the 
remarkable work of Mrs. Quincy Shaw should be, 
of course, well known to all here. " In 1877 she 
started four schools among the poor at her own 
expense. The year following she opened fourteen 
more. All were among the laboring and poorer 



I lO THE SECOND CHURCH IN BOSTON 

classes, all free, and all an individual charity. The 
work extended to Cambridge, and included about 
thirty schools, at an annual expense of from thirty 
thousand to fifty thousand dollars." 

This alone was a colossal enterprise to be carried 
on by a woman, but Mrs. Shaw's interest in educa- 
tion has not been confined to the kindergarten. It 
has been almost equally shown in all forms of 
manual training. In this branch of education the 
whole country is continually indebted to her for 
the training of teachers, and for the experimental 
investigation and trial of methods, which must 
always depend upon private sources. 

Another name comes always to our lips in con- 
nection with the benefactions of Mrs. Shaw, — the 
name of Mary Hemenway, who in many ways 
advanced the cause of education. Mrs. Hemen- 
way's efforts and gifts were directed to secondary 
rather than to primary education. Through her 
generosity and public spirit the teaching of sewing 
and cooking^ was introduced into public schools, and 
her last great work was the development of the 
Swedish system of gymnastics and the establishment 
of a Normal School of Gymnastics for the training 
of teachers. In 1878, having saved the historic 
Old South Meeting-house from destruction, she 
projected a plan for the encouragement of the study 
of American history among young people ; and 
from this has grown the Old South educational 
work, which has gained such proportions. 

It was Mrs. Hemenway who inspired John Fiske 
and James Hosmer to undertake the historical 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY I I I 

work which will be of such great value, and her 
lifelong interest in American history led her to 
give large support to archaeological expeditions and 
explorations in the South-west, and to work among 
the Zufii Indians. 

All this was related to her educational work, for 
the underlying motive for her interest and enthu- 
siasm seemed always to be patriotism, — the devel- 
opment of the children, that America might be 
honored by having only loyal, upright, physically 
and mentally strong citizens. 

The generosity and devotion of these women 
have only been equalled by that of Mrs. Leland 
Stanford, of California, who has so lately given her 
immense fortune to the Leland Stanford Univer- 
sity, making it of surpassing usefulness to the 
whole country. Thus women have not expended all 
their interest upon children. They have shown 
that they believe in the highest culture for all, for 
women as well as for men. 

First, as has been seen, came the girls' acad- 
emies, some of which remain. This secondary 
training greatly increased the demand for more ad- 
vanced education. Refused admission to most of 
the established colleges, women sought to found 
others for themselves. Thus the colleges wholly 
for girls came into existence, — Georgia Female 
College at Macon, a Wesleyan College in Ohio, 
the Mary Sharp College in Tennessee, and Elmira 
College in New York, while later came Vassar, 
Smith, Wellesley, and Bryn Mawr. Of these, one 
was founded by a woman, Sophia Smith. The 



112 THE SECOND CHURCH IN BOSTON 

same demand which has produced these colleges 
for girls has opened the doors of some of the older 
colleges to women, Oberlin and Antioch being the 
pioneers in coeducation. 

Oberlin was the college where Lucy Stone strug- 
gled so heroically for an education, where she was 
allowed to graduate, but not to read her own essay, 
and where many years after she triumphantly made 
an address, although still a woman ! To-day, of 
three hundred and forty-five colleges and universi- 
ties reporting to the National Bureau of Education, 
and exclusive of those for women alone, two hun- 
dred and four are coeducational. Of the fourteen 
hundred students now in Leland Stanford Univer- 
sity, five hundred are girls. 

Contemporary with the founding of Smith and 
Wellesley, an organization was formed by progres- 
sive women in Boston, whose aim was to aid in the 
more thorough education of women. 

Arrangements were made with Harvard College 
for examinations similar to those already accorded 
to women by the Edinburgh, Oxford, and Cambridge 
Universities. After five years' experience, instruc- 
tion was provided, as well as examination ; and the 
organization was incorporated as the Society for 
the Collegiate Instruction of Women. Of this cor- 
poration, Mrs. Elizabeth Agassiz, always to be re- 
membered in a wonderful family of educators, has 
been until within a few days the President ; and 
this Harvard Annex, as it was called, has now 
become Radcliffe College. 

There are in our country many educational 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY II 3 

institutions supplementary to the regular school 
and college, such as the Chautauqua University, 
the Correspondence University of New York, and 
others similar. 

One of these deserves special place in this paper. 
The Society to encourage Studies at Home was 
founded in 1873 by Miss Anna M. Ticknor, for 
the purpose of inducing women to form the habit 
of devoting some part of every day to systematic 
and thorough study. At one time nearly two hun- 
dred women gave their services in the instruction by 
correspondence, each taking some specialty. Each 
pupil being furnished with lists of books as well as 
with printed directions, and constantly communi- 
cating with the head of her department, uniformity 
was secured, while each student was treated in- 
dividually with regard to her special needs. Many 
thousands have availed themselves of the opportu- 
nities afforded by this society. 

The Association of Collegiate Alumnae merits 
recognition also, its object being to unite the 
women who are college graduates in practical edu- 
cational work. Its members are doing more or 
less special and graduate work in social and sani- 
tary science, in study of occupations for women, 
local histories and health statistics and other sub- 
jects covering a wide range of investigation. 

Much could be said of women serving as trus- 
tees and as presidents of colleges, and filling such 
positions with marked ability and success. 

After all, is there really any better educational 
work done in the United States than the common 



114 THE SECOND CHURCH IN BOSTON 

work of the ordinary women teachers of little chil- 
dren ? Is not theirs the formation agency, which 
preserves and elevates and starts on the way to 
perfection those who shall make our country the 
great and happy nation it may be ? This, too, has 
been a growth. In spite of Miss Beecher and 
Mount Holyoke, women teachers were few and 
were most indifferently regarded till the middle of 
the present century. As late as 1845, in some of 
the New England States, not more than a dozen 
women teachers were employed ; while to-day the 
great preponderance of such teachers is most 
marked, averaging 90 per cent, of the teaching 
force. These teachers, trained side by side with 
boys in school, graduating from the same college 
and normal school, have the same lofty ideals, the 
same professional enthusiasm as men, and perform 
equally well the duties they assume. All honor to 
the women who are making for the next century 
the story of what women have done for education ! 

As we look back over this meagre chronicle of 
the events of two hundred and fifty years, how 
short the time appears, and how great the changes. 

In the beginning, girls were not thought worthy 
of being admitted into the day-school with the 
boys. Now the daughter of the family as generally 
enters college as the son. 

The century, that began by saying that women 
do not need to be educated to be happy wives and 
good mothers, closes by declaring that, the more 
and better knowledge a woman has, the better wife 
and mother is she. 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY II5 

Matthew Vassar said, " As the mothers of a 
country mould the character of its citizens, deter- 
mine its institutions, and shape its destiny, the 
duty and necessity of the thorough training of all 
their faculties seems unquestionable." 

For this education the women themselves have 
made every effort, against tradition, prejudice, 
scepticism, ridicule, superstition, and the terrible 
apprehension that they would desert their own 
sphere for that of men. Time and common sense 
prevailed, and it has become the ruling idea of the 
American people that all shall have the opportu- 
nity for being educated into the highest type of 
manhood and womanhood. Men and women alike 
are working toward this end in the most steadfast, 
unrelenting way. For women the opening college 
doors, the professional schools, the fellowships and 
endowments, all show the increasinor belief in their 
capabilities and their needs ; and almost the best 
work of women has been to show that the hic^hest 

o 

education has not taken away the grace and charm 
of womanhood or tempted them to abandon do- 
mestic life or to attempt occupations for which they 
are not fitted. With reverent gratitude to the 
women of the past, who have done so much for 
education, and who have made it possible for a 
woman to speak of it in such a place and time as 
this, an imperfect tribute comes to an end. 



Il6 THE SECOND CHURCH IN BOSTON 

WHAT WOMEN HAVE DONE IN 
PHILANTHROPY. 

BY MRS. KATE GANNETT WELLS. 

TN the time assigned me, I can but indicate lines 
of feminine philanthropic work, within the last 
two hundred and fifty years. Its progress has 
been steadily made from the basis of individual to 
that of organized work. No clearer distinction 
between the past and present activity is presented 
than this. 

The philanthropic work of women began in tend- 
ing the graves of the Plymouth Bay settlers, in 
caring for the frail, consumptive lives of our fore- 
mothers and forefathers, and in placing the burn- 
ing coal in the foot-box stoves which kept the 
parishioners' feet warm during the long Sunday 
sermons. I like to think of those foot-stoves as 
probably the first objective proof of woman's phi- 
lanthropy on church lines. Next to that came the 
slow development of the sewing circle ; and now by 
your beautiful window representing Saint Dorcas 
you have dared to commemorate the gratitude of 
the church militant to the domestic, womanly im- 
plement of the needle. 

The church sewing circle grew into prominence 
among Congregationalists long before its era began 
with Episcopalians, who were the seceders from 
Cotton Mather's authority. But it is always to be 
remembered that Congregational New England 
women were the first to maintain their separate ex- 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY I I 7 

istences from men as working forces, which to my 
mind indicates that it is easier to work out one's 
freedom in thought from dogma than from social 
conventions of long-established dignity. Does not 
this supposition account for the slow progress of 
organization among women, and also for the fact 
that the Women's Board of Missions, Orthodox 
Congregational, antedated all other church philan- 
thropy undertaken on a large scale? 

Minute research may reveal where sprouted in 
the United States the first sewing circle and hospi- 
tal work of women. But at the North probably 
the first conspicuous result of organized sewing 
was visible in the garments made by Boston 
women for the soldiers under General Braddock, 
when our great-great-grandmothers offered their 
services with needle and thread and scissors to the 
town authorities. 

Certainly from this time women's activities for 
others began to move on co-operative lines ; while 
at the South philanthropy still was conducted on 
personal terms, though far back run the honorable 
records of the brave French Huguenot women of 
the Carolinas. Certainly, no Northern women ever 
displayed more steady purpose in alleviating distress, 
in managing large numbers of dependants, in or- 
ganizing work and supplies, than did the mothers, 
wives, and daughters of Southern planters, the evils 
of slavery being greatly lessened by their philan- 
thropies. Among them Eliza Pinckney was no- 
table, also was the first American woman who 
utilized the products of her own industry into a 



Il8 THE SECOND CHURCH IN BOSTON 

national business over one hundred and fifty years 
ago. She not only took care of her husband's and 
father's estates, but introduced reforms in agricult- 
ure, especially in the cultivation of indigo, which, 
until she raised it, was unknown in this country, 
and which, through her agency became an enor- 
mous Southern product, though later it was sup- 
planted by cotton. She stands out from among 
the colonial and Revolutionary women in this man- 
ner of business philanthropy in contrast with Cath- 
erine Schuyler and other Northern and Southern 
women, whose intense personal family life enabled 
their husbands to place their whole strength at the 
disposal of their country. Such domestic intensity 
must, however, be again contrasted with the house- 
hold life of to-day, which has had its drudgery les- 
sened by machines, inventions, bake-shops, etc., that 
have permitted women to have leisure for outside 
occupations. 

Between the later typical Northern and Southern 
women should be put the Quaker women, who 
with the Quaker men made the great success and 
energy of the Central West, when they migrated 
thither from the South, after the invention of the 
cotton gin and Nat Turner's rebellion had caused a 
reaction in favor of slavery. Next to the group 
of Revolutionary women came these self-denying 
Quaker women, who housed the huge yearly gath- 
erings of their faith and also made the abolition of 
slavery their philanthropic cause. 

As we approach the beginning of the nineteenth 
century, we find in Boston the clearest traces of the 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY II 9 

coming era of organization. The historic reason 
for this Hes in the two different influences which 
moulded Northern and Southern life. At the 
South, State government was in the line of Nor- 
man influence, to which can be directly traced 
Calhoun's later attitude of belief in State sov- 
ereignty. Transfer that theoretical position to 
woman's limited activities, and we have the years 
in which each one's house and plantation was the 
orbit in which she moved. 

I know my historical leaps are wide, but my 
present moments are few. To return to my argu- 
ment, at the North, — in New England, surely, — 
government was produced through an association 
of townships. Therefore was it natural that there 
women should first enter upon organization on the 
basis of association. From individual care for the 
individual fatherless and widowed people to sewing 
circles in the church, there came in 1800 organized 
care for them outside of church lines ; and thus the 
Boston Female Asylum became the fourth chari- 
table society of Boston and the first founded by 
women. Woman had broken away from theologic 
control, and aspired to plant her deeds of benevo- 
lence on a city's needs. 

In 18 1 6, the sewing circle idea still dear to her, 
she founded the Fragment Society, which exists 
to-day, with its warm friendliness, its bounteous 
suppers, and its Bible reading. In the same year 
was established the Widows' Society, in connection 
with which we join the beloved name of Ann Will- 
iams, who is yet with us to be honored ; and in 



I20 THE SECOND CHURCH IN BOSTON 

1847 came the Needlewoman's Friend Society, 
still beneficent and large in its operations. From 
those days onward, till within the last twenty years, 
philanthropy was conducted through increasing 
church enterprises. The sewing circle of ladies be- 
came converted into a gathering of cutters, while 
others did the sewing, and the sale of garments 
supervened. Church philanthropy thus began to 
be conducted on a business rather than on a char- 
itable basis, though now the Needlework Guild of 
America spreads its charity abroad, reaching in- 
dividuals, however, only through garments given 
first to an organization. 

Then opened the business of fairs ; and shop- 
keepers entered their protests at these amateur 
transactions, which lessened their receipts. Fairs 
still remain, and hard to find is the woman who has 
neither the hardihood to make for a fair table, nor 
to buy at one. 

There are two shining contrasts to this consolida- 
tion of philanthropy on church lines. They are, — 
you all know them, — first, the Sanitary Commission, 
which made it right to sew and pack on Sundays. 
The result of its formation was the arousing of a 
spirit of patriotism North and South which brought 
the whole womanhood of the country into two 
opposing camps for the one object, — to relieve 
distress. That Commission was the harbinger of 
the peace which should never again be broken by 
sectional animosities. The other contrast is that 
of the anti-slavery organization whose work reads 
like idyls of self-sacrifice and glowing friendships. 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 121 

Begun in individual acts, largely continued in that 
way, it yet spread out into organization, above and 
under ground, and helped at least to bind woman 
to woman in stronger bonds than those of creed. 
With all the loving service of that Commission, 
there was another healing charity exclusively 
feminine. The first hospital and dispensary for 
women was established by Drs. Elizabeth and 
Emily Blackwell and Dr. M. E. Zakrzewska in 
New York City, its charter being obtained in 1854. 
It was first opened in 1857, women physicians only 
in attendance. In 1854 also, in consequence of a 
journey of Dr. Zakrzewska to Philadelphia to obtain 
funds for her " New York Infirmary for Indigent 
Women," there was established in the Quaker City 
a hospital by women, for women, in connection with 
the Pennsylvania Medical College for Women. In 
1859 Dr. Zakrzewska organized a hospital depart- 
ment in connection with the New England Female 
Medical College in Boston, which was soon given 
up, and the New England Hospital for Women and 
Children in this city organized in 1862. To these 
hospitals is related a long retinue of philanthropies : 
the training of nurses and attendants ; the support- 
ing of convalescent homes; the caring for unmar- 
ried women and their babies ; district nursing ; diet 
kitchens ; cooking-schools ; domestic service reme- 
dies ; etc. All have grown naturally out of the 
first woman's hospital. All are organizations for 
women, conducted by women. What individual in- 
itiative started has been maintained and strength- 
ened by organization. Therefore, next to fairs in 



122 THE SECOND CHURCH IN BOSTON 

the stage of development should be put hospital 
work : only let it be remembered that, while we 
Protestant women were struggling out of the little 
whirlpools of individual philanthropy, Catholic 
women were serving humanity in organized sister- 
hoods, and were far ahead of us Protestants in con- 
centrated philanthropies. 

Very, very slowly in this country came individual 
— still less, organized — prison work. What there 
is to-day is done conjointly with men, though the 
Reformatory Prison for Women in Massachusetts 
was under a woman, Mrs. Ellen C. Johnson, long 
its honored superintendent, her administration being 
one of rare financial and reformatory success. A 
joint commission of men and women, however, 
superintended it. Alongside of these dawning 
institutions crept in organized work by visiting the 
poor outside of church districts. Then was it that 
philanthropy showed itself free from sectarianism. 
More and more has the visiting become the work of 
women, first through the Provident Institution, and 
then through the Associated Charities, established 
in 1879. Women have had much to do (and not- 
able among them in this direction is Mrs. James T. 
Fields) in bringing philanthropy into the service of 
civil polity in this the first conscious, broad attempt 
to unite all the helpers of a city in a concerted, per- 
manent enterprise for the benefit of all. 

From this time onward the record of service to 
others was almost in ways of competition at North 
and South and West, each place having its salient 
features of achieving the same end. As a psycho- 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 1 23 

logical problem, it is interesting to note that ortho- 
dox women turned to rescue work for so-called un- 
fortunate women sooner than Universalist or Uni- 
tarian women, who have, on the other hand, first 
developed educational philanthropy. But I must 
not touch on education : that department was as- 
signed to-day to another most fitted to deal with 
it. The coming ages alone will show whether all 
education is philanthropy or all philanthropy is 
education. 

The next stage in philanthropy among women, 
its possibility largely growing out of the spirit of 
co-operation, is the club movement, beginning with 
the New England Club and the New York Sorosis, 
which I claim for philanthropy, as it also may be 
partly claimed for education. I will not enlarge 
upon it, for its enormous moral impulse in uniting 
the capacities of womanhood for work is as well 
known as its increasing tendency to labor for the 
benefit of others rather than for its own intellectual 
or social pleasure. 

Most fitting is it that a Southern woman should 
be president of the Federation of Clubs, a move- 
ment of all women, and that a Western woman 
has been president of the International Council, 
since empire moves westward. 

In connection with the club movement, most 
honorable mention should be made of the organiza- 
tion of the Working-girls' Clubs. They, too, are 
becoming national in their interchange of purposes 
and convictions. 

What would Dorothy Hancock have done if, when 



124 THE SECOND CHURCH IN BOSTON 

she wished to send her maids to milk anybody's cow 
on Boston Common, there had been no maids to 
summon, as they had gone to a Federation meet- 
ing? These clubs are lessening the imaginary so- 
cial differences in occupation, and are the organ- 
ized refrain of Burns's song, " A man's a man for a' 
that," as man is the generic term for the beautiful 
species, woman. 

With the club movement should also be correlated 
that of the college settlements, a wide-spreading 
uprising of the better self in education. The dis- 
tinctive adjective was soon dropped as too narrow; 
but the open spirit that actuated it remains, as it is 
culture offering itself to all the various opportunities 
of philanthropy working through education, the first 
large distinct recognition by women of this union 
of forces. With the organization of clubs and 
college and social settlements we enter upon the 
extension of philanthropy into State and national 
aspects, since the Sanitary Commission as a national 
work expired with the war. 

In such national woman's work should be ranked 
first, at least in magnitude, the Woman's Christian 
Temperance Union. The "earnest, impetuous, 
inspired" praying bands of 1873-74 have become 
the unions, " firm, patient, and persevering." The 
home has been the starting-point and the focus, 
the cause and result, the means and the end, for 
which its millions of members work for others by 
thousands of agencies. Less in extent, but noble 
and valiant in service, are the Young Women's 
Christian Associations and the Women's Unions 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 1 25 

and Exchanges (such as we here are familiar with 
on Boylston Street, incorporated in 1880), having 
for their aim, irrespective of religious tests, the 
purpose of fellowship among women and the pro- 
motion of practical methods for securing their 
educational, social, and industrial progress. 

Such unions are eminently philanthropic, are 
spreading all over the country, are liberalizing creeds, 
and are to be reckoned with as one of, if not the 
broadest application of the theories of philanthropy 
to practical dealings with life. 

And, if woman's love for the beautiful was the 
irresistible impulse that drove her into artistic 
philanthropy, certainly the higher requirements 
which are now demanded for all art work, from 
patchwork quilts to china painting, embroidery 
and tapestry, have added to woman's income ; and 
anything that does that is philanthropy. 

Around these larger philanthropies of the unions 
cluster groups of independent centres, employment 
bureaus and industrial schools. 

Within fifteen years another division of philan- 
thropy has been set off. Summer playgrounds, va- 
cation schools, women's gymnasiums, country weeks 
and picnics, flower missions, — almost all have been 
started by women, for Vv'omen and children. Some 
are independent organizations offered by women, 
others are connected with previously established 
agencies for doing good, some are working under 
city or school control ; but all are bringing to the 
summer season glad hosannas of joy that vacation 
has come, and country pleasures arc to strengthen 



126 THE SECOND CHURCH IN BOSTON 

mind and body. This radiant work, too, is brighten- 
ing into national repute as one playground sends 
its joyous echoes far out into another. Women 
can't help caring ever to make children happy. 
This great various playground work can be 
counted as the crowning joy of her motherhood 
of hospitality. 

Lastly, we come to the legislative division of 
philanthropy. Under this are included the pro- and 
anti-suffrage organizations ; for whether or not one 
is a suffragist the work is a woman's work, begun 
by the pro-suffragists on as honest lines of philan 
thropy as ever actuated any woman to work for 
another, and has become national. Also, all the 
work that women are now doing in the service 
of the State, city, town, on various State and city 
boards and committees. None of it is paid, but 
it is done gladly as woman's contribution to her 
country's needs. There is scarcely a large institu- 
tion anywhere which does not count women among 
its managers on an equality with men. Surely, the 
bygone days of home usefulness alone have bloomed 
into a great beauty of wide, beneficent action. This 
legislative national stage of philanthropy embraces 
Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, and all other women. 
The first National Council of Jewish Women was 
held in November, 1896, in New York; and their 
convention revealed a large number of helpful facts 
in their renderings of philanthropy. And what 
shall be said of the immense moneyed contributions 
of women ? They cannot be computed, for they 
cannot include the amounts of that self-denial which 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 1 27 

has made it possible for the widow's mite to be 
reckoned on as financial aid. The widow and 
Helen Gould are alike philanthropists ; yet it was 
but fifty years ago, said Mrs. Robinson, in her book 
on Lowell life, that women first spent their own 
money earned by themselves. 

Philanthropy, begun in the individual ministra- 
tions of the women of Plymouth Bay, widened into 
church work of sewing circles and visiting the sick, 
from that into channels of raising money for the 
needy by fairs, and of gradual working outside of 
credal connections into helping the city or town 
poor. Then came the fuller development of organ- 
ization, until national associations were welded 
together out of local ones, these, in turn, circling 
the globe with their international forces, like the 
International Council of Women. With all the 
ardor and imagination that have gone into the com- 
pounding of these philanthropic relations has been 
coupled the forethought by which women have 
brought legislative aid to assist them, and have 
themselves become the nation's councillors. 

Would that I had time to note the hundreds of 
women who have been leaders in effecting these 
marvels ! 

Let me mention seven, as they serve to show the 
evolution that has slowly been working its way 
toward something forever to be better than what 
has been, no matter how great was that past. 

Anne Hutchinson, — I name her first, as standing 
for philanthropy through spiritual forces ; Catherine 
Schuyler, as the type of those women who thought 



128 THE SECOND CHURCH IN BOSTON 

by serving their home best they served their coun- 
try most ; Eliza Pinckney, who taught that to 
increase the industries of a Nation was philan- 
thropy; Lucretia Mott, who brought freedom to 
the slave ; Dorothea Dix, who by knowing how to 
manage legislatures brought relief to the insane ; 
Mary Hemenway, who gave her wealth to foster 
philanthropy by increasing practical applications of 
education and to strengthen patriotism ; Frances 
Willard, whose temperance included the prohibition 
of everything which did not conduce to the highest 
welfare of State and home. 

Each of these women with their countless hosts 
of followers, who chose as exemplar that woman 
whose methods they liked best, worked from the 
internal development of her soul to the external 
marshalling of her strength for the varied forms 
of philanthropy. Not one ever forgot she was a 
woman because she was a philanthropist. None 
ever laid aside the basic principle of individualism 
in the scope for organization. The personality 
of each has passed into the nation's keeping, since 
each was true, first unto herself, and then accom- 
plished her purposes by subordinating self unto the 
good of all. 

From the individual to organization, from one's 
church to one's country, has the quest of philan- 
thropy hastened ; and Increase Mather, Ralph 
Waldo Emerson, and Thomas Van Ness, each 
says that the woman whom he knew best, best 
served the Lord. 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 1 29 

WHAT WOMEN HAVE DONE IN 
THEOLOGY. 

BY REV. ANNA GARLIN SPENCER. 

''"T^HE contribution made by women to the church 
^ life of thought and of effort in America since 
this Second Congregation of Boston was formed 
cannot be sketched, even &Hghtl3^ without allusion 
to two events which preceded that one; namely, the 
arrival of Anne Hutchinson from England in 1634 
and the beginning of her ministry in Boston shortly 
after, and the first synod, or " Assembly," of the 
Church in New England, which was held in New- 
ton in 1637. Anne Hutchinson, whom Governor 
Winthrop, who did not like her, called a " woman 
of a ready wit and a bold spirit," believed that " the 
power of the Holy Spirit dwells in every believer," 
and that the inward revelations of the Spirit were 
of supreme authority ; and she therefore felt no 
need for ecclesiastical sanction for her preaching. 
Winthrop tells us that she held " two dangerous 
errors : first, that the person of the Holy Ghost 
dwells in a justified person ; and, second, that no 
sanctification can help to evidence to us our own jus- 
tification." Whether her errors of theology or her 
sex had most to do with her persecution by the 
" teaching elders and magistrates " of New England 
we cannot now say, but her sex furnished a conven- 
ient weapon against her continued ministrations. 
We read that the Newton Assembly of 1637 was 
"attended by all the teaching elders through.CLt the 



130 THE SECOND CHURCH IN BOSTON 

country and many new come from England," and 
that it spent the first days of its deliberations in 
defining and condemning over " eighty erroneous 
opinions now taught in the Colonies," and that it 
placed prominently among these the peculiar tenets 
of Mrs. Hutchinson and her followers. This, we 
are told, " offended some from Boston," who de- 
parted to come no more. The last day of this As- 
sembly was given wholly to the discussion of the 
question of women's preaching, and of the rights of 
the laity, especially of those differing from the ma- 
jority of the Church in points of doctrine. The 
following " Resolve " was passed : " That, though 
women might meet, some few together, to pray and 
edify one another, yet such a set assembly, as was 
then the practice at Boston, where sixty or more did 
meet every week, and one woman, in a prophetical 
way, by resolving questions of doctrine and ex- 
pounding Scripture took upon her the whole 
exercise, is agreed to be disorderly and without 
rule." That is to say, it was decided that it was 
proper to hold a small "female prayer-meeting," 
but that a congregation of women met to listen to 
one woman was an unlawful body. 

The power of the woman against whose preach- 
ing this " Resolve " was aimed cannot be denied ; 
for w^e are told that the dispute between her fol- 
lowers and her opposers " impressed its spirit into 
everything." It interfered with the levy of troops 
for the Pequot War; it influenced the respect 
shown to magistrates, as when in this first As- 
sembly some of the Boston delegates boldly de- 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY I3I 

clared that " magistrates had no place in a meeting 
of Church members, and they should not yield 
obedience to them in religious concerns " ; it even 
entered into the distribution of town lots, the 
assessment of rates, and other secular affairs. So 
that we read of a formidable number of men 
" ordered disarmed " because of this religious dis- 
pute, nearly sixty of them " men of Boston, beside 
goodly numbers belonging to Salem, Newberry, 
Roxberry, Ipswich, and Charlestown." The order 
in the Colony Record reads as follows : — 

" Whereas the opinions and revelations of Mr. 
Wheelwright and Mrs. Hutchinson have seduced 
and led into dangerous errours many of the people 
here in New England, insomuch as there is just 
cause of suspicion that many of these upon some 
revelation may make some sudden irruption upon 
those that differ from them in judgment, for pre- 
vention of this it is ordered that ' these men,' etc., 
be disarmed." 

The great Cotton and Sir Harry Vane supported 
Mrs. Hutchinson, as well as many others of impor- 
tance, besides the " Mr. Wheelwright" who was her 
brother, and whom Governor Winthrop speaks of 
with some contempt as " a sometime silenced 
preacher of England." It is claimed that at one 
time all but five members of the Boston Church 
were her followers. But this did not save her from 
" severe dealings " ; and she was, as we all know, 
"publicly admonished," and finally "banished from 
the Massachusetts Colony." Her admonishment 
consisted of a lecture "lasting: from ten o'clock in 



132 THE SECOND CHURCH IN BOSTON 

the morning until eight at night," which was inter- 
spersed with her own replies, in which, as Win- 
throp says, " she held her own, and carried her sons 
with her, so that they had to be admonished also." 
As it had already been clearly shown that her 
"husband was wholly influenced by her," it would 
seem that this first woman minister of America 
was held in high esteem by the members of her 
own household. Her banishment from Massachu- 
setts gave a great help to Rhode Island in the di- 
rection of " soul liberty ; " and her preaching laid an 
important foundation for the sect of Quakers, who 
were, and still are, the finest expression of woman's 
influence in theology and in the religious life 
which the Christian Church has shown. When in 
1656 the Quakers first made their appearance in 
New England, it was in the persons of two women, 
Mary Fisher and Ann Austin ; and there was great 
excitement when the news of their arrival reached 
the ears of the General Court. That body ordered 
" a day of humiliation to seek the face of God in 
behalf of our native country in reference to the 
abounding errours, especially those of the Ranters 
and Quakers." The two women were cast into 
prison until the shipmaster could return them to 
Barbadoes ; but they were but the first of a mighty 
host of heretics against whom many peculiar and 
severe penalties were aimed, not only by the Gen- 
eral Court of Massachusetts, but by the authorities 
of Connecticut and New Haven. Among these 
Quakers of greatest note were Annie Burden and 
Mary Dyer, the latter hanged on Boston Common 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 1 33 

in 1660, and declaring with her latest breath, " In 
obedience to the will of the Lord I came, and in 
His will I abide faithful to the death." 

Some of the early Friends, or Quakers, behaved 
in a strange manner, it is true, testifying by un- 
seemly words and deeds to their sense of spiritual 
direction by " the inner light." But the sect from 
the first placed men and women on an equality, and 
all classes of every social grade as well, and can 
boast of many godly and effective preachers of both 
sexes. Among these we may give high place to 
Sybil Jones, the minister to souls in prison, of 
American as Elizabeth Fry was of English birth ; 
and to our own Lucretia Mott, the Benjamin 
Franklin and William Lloyd Garrison combined 
among American women. Lucretia Mott was not 
only a perfect union of domestic virtue and social 
helpfulness, but she was one of the greatest leaders 
of either sex in the application of rational thought 
to religious concerns. Of the foundation of the 
" Hicksite," or Unitarian, branch of the sect of 
Friends, she said, " At twenty-five years of age, 
surrounded by a little family and many cares, I felt 
called to a more public life and devotion to duty, 
and engaged in the ministry in our society, receiv- 
ing every encouragement from those in authority 
until a separation from us in 1827, when my con- 
victions led me to adhere to the sufficiency of the 
light within us, resting on truth as authority rather 
than taking authority for truth." When the Free 
Religious Society of America was formed, in the 
attempt to unite men and women for the study of 



134 THE SECOND CHURCH IN BOSTON 

Truth and the unity of religious Faith under all 
differing symbols of religious dogma, its chosen 
motto was " Truth for Authority, not Authority for 
Truth " ; and it thus linked its purpose with 
Lucretia Mott's simple creed, as it claimed her for 
one of its original and official members. 

There are now about three hundred and fifty 
women preachers in the Society of Friends, As the 
years have gone on since this old Second Church 
was founded, the sects have multiplied and increased 
in our America ; and the entrance of women into 
their recognized and public service has been in in- 
verse ratio to the ecclesiasticism of the body and in 
almost exact proportion to its Congregationalism (or 
democracy) of polity. As in the old Assembly of 
1637 the rights of the laity and the separation of 
Church and State were most insisted upon by those 
who supported Mrs. Hutchinson in her right to 
ofive " two lectures a week with an attendance of 
eighty or more persons," so, in the course of history 
since that time the claim of the church body to be 
the seat and source of church power has been inti- 
mately bound up with the entrance of women into 
positions of trust and leadership in the administra- 
tion of church affairs. We will briefly consider 
the growth of women's initiative in church matters 
as related to the different sects in their gradations 
from a hierarchy to a democracy. 

The Roman Catholic Church has a recognized, 
honored, and most useful place for consecrated 
womanhood, and, it must be remembered, first gave 
women a social career in the early days of the 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 1 35 

Christian Church. But it must be a celibate 
womanhood, removed from all the ordinary duties 
and offices of the mother sex. The Protestant 
Episcopal Church has increasingly given to women 
a field for distinctive work by the establishment 
of two deaconess orders and fourteen sisterhoods 
and a religious Order of Widows. The General 
Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church of 
18S9 provided that every candidate for the office of 
deaconess, before she is set apart, shall have had 
" an adequate preparation for her work, both tech- 
nical and religious, which preparation shall cover 
the period of two years"; and in 1890 the Grace 
House Training School for Deaconesses was es- 
tablished in New York. The deaconesses of this 
Church, although devoted to philanthropic work 
for the most part, are a great source of strength 
to their denomination. The Methodist Episcopal 
Church, of which Susanna Wesley has been called 
" the real founder," owes its introduction into this 
country to a woman, Barbara Heck, as much as, 
if not more, than to its first preacher in America, 
Philip Embury; for Mrs. Heck, landing in New 
York in 1760, with Mr. Embury, who was her 
cousin, and feeling deeply concerned because he 
did little or nothing for the first five years of his 
residence to hold together and increase the Wes- 
leyans who came with them, herself started the first 
" class meeting " by a " lively testimoney against 
card playing," which consisted of burning the cards, 
and insisting that Embury enroll herself and four 
other persons as a regular "class." It was she 



136 THE SECOND CHURCH IN BOSTON 

who furnished the plans for the first Methodist 
chapel, which took the place of the old " rigging 
loft," which was the original home of the Wes- 
leyans in this country. In spite of these facts, 
however, and notwithstanding the freedom of 
prayer and speech always allowed women in the 
class meetings, the class leaders are all men ; and 
women are as yet denied full ordination to the 
Methodist pulpit. Women, however, were at one 
time " licensed " as " exhorters " by the Methodist 
Episcopal Church ; and under that name some 
wom.en achieved great power as evangelists. But 
when those licenses were revoked, and the semi- 
ministerial class abolished, the logical next step 
of ordaining these women who had already " veri- 
fied their credentials " was not taken. The move- 
ment to remove the sanction of the Church from 
the class called " licensed exhorters " was not 
aimed against women preachers, but rather against 
illiterate men, and in the interest of a more digni- 
fied, learned, and united preaching class. It was 
applied, however, in a way to do great injustice to 
women, and has given the demand of the Method- 
ist women for official recognition in the ministry 
of their Church a sting of protest against actual 
wrong which has no such basis in fact in any other 
communion. 

The Primitive Methodists have always used 
women preachers as evangelists, especially among 
the more depraved classes, and this was one of the 
points of difference between them and the main 
body which caused the separation ; while the Ger- 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 1 37 

man Methodists, or " United Brethren in Christ," 
have ordained many women elders and some women 
" circuit riders " of the original Methodist style. 

The German Lutheran Church has discussed the 
question of women's preaching, in a synod held in 
1 89 1 and later several times, and decided that 
women must not teach in the Church at all, either 
in the pulpit or the congregation. Yet those who 
witnessed the vigor and ability of the German 
Lutheran women at their denominational congress 
at the World's Parliament of Religions, and marked 
the large number and well-organized variety of 
their special women's activities, realized that some 
effective " teaching " is already done by the 
women of that Church; and as early as 1849 this 
Church introduced the Order of Deaconess into 
this country, and America has now at Philadelphia 
the finest " mother-house " in the world for the 
training and work of the Lutheran deaconesses. 

The Presbyterian Church, although for many 
years excluding women from all voice in church de- 
votion or government, has for some time allowed 
them to take part in prayer-meetings, and even 
sometimes to speak at regular meetings and synods 
on missionary or philanthropic topics ; and at a 
synod of the Reformed Presbyterian Church, held 
in 1889, it was voted by a majority of ninety-three 
to twenty-four that the ordination of a woman as 
deacon is " in harmony with the New Testament 
and the Constitution of the Apostolic Church." 
Of the congregational bodies, although the Calvin- 
ist Baptists exclude women from the ministry, 



I ^8 THE SECOND CHURCH IN BOSTON 



3 



the Free Baptists are conspicuous in their official 
recognition of women preachers, the General Con- 
ference of that body having adopted in 1886 
the following resolution : " That intelligent, godly 
women, who are so situated as to devote their time 
to the ministry, and desire to be ordained, should 
receive such indorsement and authority as ordina- 
tion involves,- provided there are no objections 
other than the matter of sex." The number of 
Free Baptist women ministers is large, and growing 
all the time. 

The Trinitarian Congregational body, although 
giving official recognition to the first ordained 
woman minister in America, Antoinette Brown 
Blackwell, early in the fifties, and although opening 
its college at Oberlin, even to its Divinity Depart- 
ment, " both to women and negroes," in days when 
both classes were equally excluded from most halls 
of higher learning, and although its system of church 
government has made it possible for each church 
to choose freely its own minister and mode of 
ordination, has never given the welcome to women 
preachers that the Free Baptists have extended. 
The opening of the Hartford Theological Semi- 
nary, however, and the general emplo3^ment of 
regularly sanctioned women missionaries in foreign 
lands, and the almost universal welcome given 
women who bear special messages of social 
betterment to leading pulpits of the Orthodox 
Congregational body, all show a strong movement 
within it toward full equality of opportunity to men 
and women. 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 1 39 

The Unitarian Congregationalists, in setting up 
housekeeping for themselves, did not much enlarge 
the sphere of feminine service in the church, 
having refused as late as i860 to admit women to 
the theological school at Meadville, and even now 
shutting out its daughters " who would prophesy" 
from the training of the Harvard Divinity School, 
except under difficult conditions. Ten years after 
its refusal to admit Olymphia Brown, Meadville 
opened its doors to women students with full and 
generous privilege ; and considerably more than 
twenty women have been graduated there, and 
achieved successful work in the ministry. 

The Universalist denomination was the first to 
admit women to exactly equal training for the 
ministry, and naturally has to-day the largest 
number of women preachers " in good and regular 
standing " of any sect except the Friends, having 
over sixty in 1895. The Unitarian pulpits, how- 
ever, have had occasional ministration from many 
noted women, who are, like Julia Ward Howe, 
"born preachers," but not exclusively devoted to 
church work. And perhaps such occasional preach- 
ing has given as much impetus to the sect in which 
it has been most conspicuous, and has as well illus- 
trated the newly developed moral and intellectual 
initiative of women, as the more regular ministra- 
tion of women in some other sects. 

The duties of the Christian ministry, as they 
have been interpreted and practised by women in 
our country, have proved compatible with high 
devotion to family life and successful administration 



140 THE SECOND CHURCH IN BOSTON 

of household affairs, and many of our best known 
and ablest women ministers have been wives and 
mothers; while in the Unitarian ministry, especially 
where young and single women have entered upon 
the work of church leadership, they have often pre- 
vented any possible criticism or misunderstanding 
on the part of the socially fastidious or conserva- 
tive by following the example of the apostles and 
" going out two by two." In that way two women 
friends have often not only served their church with 
a double ministry, but, by making a refined and at- 
tractive home life for themselves, demonstrated the 
social safety and dignity possible in the ministerial 
profession. And, where a young single woman has 
undertaken a church leadership alone, it has often 
been with the help and protection of her mother or 
sister or some older friend, who stood to her life and 
work in the relation of the " minister's wife " to the 
man preacher in charge of a parish. 

The office of a " teaching elder," to use the fine 
old phrase, has already proved especially congenial 
to women of the idealizing faculty, and also to those 
gifted in social organization. In those simpler 
forms of church order in which the sacramental 
service is supplanted by the teaching function, and 
the ministrations of a friend and helper and in- 
structor are alone required, there has been found 
a noble field for their devotion. The ministerial 
profession has proved also more harmonious with 
the domestic and social relations of a completed 
womanhood (one including wifehood and mother- 
hood in its range of experience and duty), than has 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY I4I 

either the law or medicine or a business career, as 
these are ordinarily practised. For the ministry, 
like art, literature, and other forms of teaching, 
profits rather than loses by periods of quiet reflec- 
tion in pauses of active work, and thus falls in well 
with the periodicities of the married woman's life. 
Moreover, the cumulative power of personal influ- 
ence (which is the distinguishing feature of the 
" teaching elder's " work) suggests long residence in 
one place, regular duties performed near the home, 
and a slow development of public service, all conso- 
nant with the best interests of family life. As ordi- 
nary pastoral work is more and more seen to be 
merely a part of teaching, and as the services of the 
few great preachers (among whom doubtless will be 
always found some women) are more and more con- 
served for the benefit of the whole church body by 
a better business administration of church affairs, 
the place of the cultured but not extraordinary 
woman in the profession will be doubtless much en- 
larged, and in consequence the relation of the 
pastoral office itself to other forms of teaching and 
philanthropic work better outlined. 

Finally, mention must be made of the part 
women have played in the birth of new sects dur- 
ing the last two hundred and fifty years. The 
Shaker sect, as is well known, is the outgrowth 
exclusively of a woman's leadership, " Mother Ann 
Lee," of England, in 1770, as a member of the 
Society of Friends, professing to receive a special 
revelation which declared her the " Christ of the 
female order," her followers receiving her as " God 



142 THE SECOND CHURCH IN BOSTON 

revealed in the character of mother, the bearing 
Spirit of all creation." In 1774 she took nine of 
her disciples to America, and began in New York 
State the community life which has been such a 
marked feature of the Shakers' faith. The essen- 
tial doctrines of this sect, human brotherhood 
reaching to a complete community of goods, non- 
resistance, non-participation in secular government, 
strict celibacy, and perfect chastity, and the remark- 
able pecuniary success of the Shaker settlements, 
together with the strength of devotion which has 
bound so many men and women together in so 
strait a way of life, prove great power in the origi- 
nal impulse started by " Mother Ann." The es- 
sential difference in social and domestic ideals 
between the Shaker sect, founded by a woman, and 
the Quaker sect, so largely the fruit of woman's in- 
fluence, on the one side, and those of the Mormon 
sect and of the Oneida Communists, which were 
the outgrowth of purely masculine leadership, on 
the other side, suggest to the student of compara- 
tive sex-development some curious points of inves- 
tigation. The Salvation Army, like its prototype, 
early Methodism, is quite as much the outgrowth 
of woman's devotion and initiative as of man's, and 
is a remarkable instance of a union of husband and 
wife in a movement of world significance. And 
although this movement is not American, but 
English, the branching sect now identified wholly 
with American life is led by that most engaging 
and persuasive of women preachers, Mrs. Balling- 
ton Booth, quite as much as by her loyal husband. 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 1 43 

The Spiritualist sect is marked by especially femi- 
nine features, some, of course, not of the highest 
type of sex-differentiation, since, whatever may be 
the substrata, the outward manifestations of that 
faith are intimately associated with certain nervous 
conditions in which women (and men of semi- 
artistic and semi-invalid temperament) show the 
most striking powers of sensitive response to out- 
ward influence. The latest religious sect called 
" Christian Science," was founded by a woman, and 
is especially American, and now in its first flush of 
youthful enthusiasm. 

The official work of women in the Church, how- 
ever, either as ministers or as sect-makers, is not 
the chief contribution of women to church life and 
activity during the two and a half centuries. The 
great work of women in this particular has been 
accomplished in the lay membership of the Chris- 
tian Church, in the moulding of its standards and 
ideals as conceived and realized in the personal 
life, and in the practical achievements of the 
Church as an uplifting social force. The great 
body of the Christian Church is of the mother-sex. 
The great sacrificial services of the Church have 
depended in large measure upon women for their 
fulfilment, if not for their initiative. In the sorry 
record of the sins and weaknesses and failures 
of the Church, women have had large share ; and in 
its high usefulness they can claim — in numerical 
force, at least — a larger portion than can men. 
The great question now is, not. What are women 
free to do in and for the Church ? but, How can we 
secure and keep any men in it to do anything? 



144 THE SECOND CHURCH IN BOSTON 

It is an absurdity and one still witnessed, so slow 
is human growth, to withhold any place in the 
church offices from women, since they are the great 
constituency and dependence of the religious body, 
and have now opportunities of training for all re- 
sponsible positions of leadership. But the great 
and pressing problem in the more enlightened 
portions of the religious body is that of winning 
back to the support of this time-honored institution 
(which we cannot yet believe outgrown) the active, 
earnest, and general devotion of the best and wisest 
men. Such men as Winthrop and Endicott and 
Dudley and Willoughby, and the Plymouth worthies, 
and all the greatest men of Massachusetts Colony, 
— these gave the vigor and force of the church 
life in the days of history this old Second Congre- 
gation has witnessed and of which it has been a 
part. If our descendants are to celebrate the five 
hundredth anniversary of the founding of The 
Second Church in Boston, there must be deeper 
devotion and more universal allegiance to the 
Church on the part of men than there is now. 
The present problems in religious concerns force 
the conviction upon the thoughtful that the Church 
as an institution must be changed radically, in some 
as yet unknown ways, in order to fit it to a social 
order which has already changed radically from the 
conditions surrounding the Puritan of New Eng. 
land. To many of us it is clear that the peculiarly 
practical and flexible genius of womanhood " has 
come into its kingdom " of moral and intellectual 
initiative in the Church " for such an hour as this." 



THE INFLUENCE OF THE SECOND 
CHURCH IN AMERICA. 



THE service of Monday evening was devoted to ad- 
dresses on the influence of The Second Church in 
America. As a part of the service of this evening, the 
conductor and choir of the church rendered the " Hymn of 
Praise " of Mendelssohn, assisted by the soloists and mem- 
bers of a chorus whose names are given below.* 

The Order of Service of this evening, as originally pro- 
posed, is given in full. The addresses by his Excellency 
Governor Wolcott and President Eliot were necessarily 
omitted. The chairman of the Standing Committee pre- 
sided, and introduced the speakers. 

?^gmn of praise, Op. 52 . . Felix Mendchsohn-Bartholdy. 

{For Orchestra, Chorjis, and Soloists.) 

Symphony. 
Maestoso con moto, Allegro, Allegretto un poco agitato, Adagio religiose. 

* Conductor, Mr. H. G. Tucker. Soloists: Mrs. Marian Titus, soprano; Miss Bertha 
W. Swift, soprano; Mr. K. W. Hobbs, tenor; Mr. J. H. Ricketson, tenor. Orga,tist, Mr. 
G. W. F. Reed. Orchestra of thirty players, Mr. Tsidor Schnitzler, principal. Chorus: 
soprano: I^Iiss Mary B. Anderson, Missl'Louise Baum, Miss Eleanor M. Colleton, Mrs. 
R. G. Harris, Miss Mara V. Hastings, Miss Alice Hutchinson, Miss Edith G. Mason, Miss 
M deV. Mitchell, Miss Bertha W. Swift, Miss E. P. Syer, Mrs. Marian Titus, Miss E. M. 
Tuckerman, Miss Grace E. White; alto: Mrs. M. A. Brewer, Mrs. Louise B. Brooks. Miss 
Mary E. Burroughs, Miss Jennie Hayes, Mrs. H. C. Lewis, Mrs. Edith MacGregor Woods, 
Miss L T. Murphv, Mrs. Fanny Holt Reed, Mrs. H. K. Sanborn, Miss Louise Schroeder, 
Mrs. Anna von Rydingsvard ; tenor: Mr. Stephen Alta, Mr. C. F. Atwood, Mr. L. E. Black, 
Mr. E. P. Boynton, Mr. Charles Cliase, Mr. Henry B. Coughlan, Mr. James F. Harlow, 
Mr B W Hobbs, Mr. H. I^L Murdough; bass: Mr. George M. Brooks, Dr. A. N. 
Broughton, Mr. Charles H. Hillman, Mr. C. W. Cole, Mr. Hobart E. Cousens, Mr. G. W. 
Dudley, Mr. John S. Kilby, Mr. W. B. Phillips, Dr. Mark W. Richardson. Orchestra 
selected by Mr. Carl Behr. 



146 THE SECOND CHURCH IN BOSTON 

Cantata 
(Chorus and Soprano vSolo). 
" All men, all things, all that has life and breath, sing to the Lord. 
Praise thou the Lord for his great loving-kindness." 

Introtiuctorg ISlemairks Stephen M. Crosby. 

^tjtiress. "The Influence of The Second Church in America." 
(a) " In Government." 

His Excellency Roger Wolcott, 

Governor of Massachusetts. 
3ren0r SOI0. " Sing ye praise." 

Hecttattbe. " He counteth all your sorrows." 

Ci)anis. "All ye that cried unto the Lord." 

©uet antj Chorus. " I waited for the Lord." 

'UtitirESS. "The Influence of The Second Church in America." 
{b) " In Education." 

Charles W. Eliot, LL.D., 
President of Harvard University . 

2Eenat Solo. 

"The sorrows of death had closed all around me. But, said the Lord, 
come, arise from the dead, awake thou that sleepest, I bring thee 
salvation." 

JSecitattfae. " Watchman, will the night soon pass ? " 

Stoprano Becttatifte. " The night is departing." 

Cljorns. 

" The night is departing. The day is approaching. Let us cast off 
the works of darkness. Let us gird on the armor of Light." 

•Etitiress. " The Influence of The Second Church in America." 
if) " In Literature." 

Francis G. Peabody, D..D., 
Pltinuner Professor of Christian Morals 
in Harvard Ufiiversity. 

Offering. 

Cf}Oi^al£. "Let all men praise the Lord." 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 1 47 

Biict. (Soprano and Tenor.) " My song shall be alway thy 
mercy." 

^tJtJress. " The Influence of The Second Church in America." 
(d) " For Religious Independence." 

Rev. Edward Everett Hale, D.D. 

" Ye nations offer to the Lord glory and might. Oh, give thanks to 
the Lord." 

Congugattonal l^gmu. "America." 

ISenetiiction, 

JBrestien 3lmm. 



OPENING ADDRESS. 

BY STEPHEN M. CROSBY. 

Ladies and Gentlemen^ Members and Friends of 
the Society of The Second Church in Boston, — I 
have the honor, in behalf of its lay members, to 
welcome you cordially to participate in the glad 
and thankful celebration of this evening. 

The distinctly religious and devotional exercises 
in commemoration of this two hundred and fiftieth 
anniversary of the foundation of this Society have 
been most successfully carried out ; and we are met 
this evening to close the series on the secular side 
of our history by considering the development and 
progress in governmental, political, educational, 
literary, and religious liberty which has marked these 
two and a half centuries, and toward which this 
ancient church has, in this vicinity at least, con- 
tributed in no small degree. 

It has been given to but very few organizations 
in this country to be able to maintain a coherent 
and continuous existence through such a lengthy 
period as we may proudly claim ; and, curiously, it 
is only such as have their foundation in the re- 
lio^ious element in human nature that have been 
thus preserved. 

Political and social combinations, however 
powerful, arise, culminate, change, and disappear; 
but that principle within all men which holds them 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 1 49 

to their dependence upon God, which forces them 
to a recognition of the eternal verities of Hfe and 
the possibiHty of the Hfe to come, forms a bond of 
union which reasserts itself in generation after gen- 
eration, with ever cohesive and effective force. 

So when seven brethren in 1649 — the settlement 
of Boston not yet twenty years old, and their sister 
Church, the First, only seventeen years old — met, 
probably not in an " upper chamber " (there were 
not many, if any, " upper chambers " in those days), 
but in some convenient log hut, and united them- 
selves in a covenant, and did " avouch the Lord to 
be our God and ourselves to be his people ... to 
cleave to him and to one another in him," they 
laid the foundation of their church so simply, yet 
so deep and strong, that eight successive genera- 
tions of men have builded and rested thereon, un- 
dismayed by vicissitudes, uncorrupted by prosper- 
ity. 

Men in those days gathered around the church 
as the central focal point, lavished their labor on 
the construction of its edifice, defended it with 
their guns from hostile, savage attack, builded their 
homes near it, and found in its worship almost their 
only relief and recreation from the hard, continuous 
struggle of their daily lives. Their minister was to 
them the oracle of God. He was their counsellor, 
instructor, guide, and leader. 

It was in a century of immense upheaval and 
unrest that this little society w^as born. That 
year, 1649, had just witnessed the beheading of 
Charles I. His son Charles II. was in exile, and 



150 THE SECOND CHURCH IN BOSTON 

the redoubtable Cromwell was rapidly paving the 
way by his victories for the short-lived Common- 
wealth of England. During the first half-century 
of the existence of The Second Church the colonies 
of New England, and especially that of Massachu- 
setts, were subjected to constant restrictions and 
encroachments upon their chartered rights, met by 
the colonists with persistent though often unavailing 
opposition. Finally, in 1683, Edward Randolph, a 
bitter enemy, was sent by the king to demand of 
Massachusetts a surrender of its charter, and to 
enforce obedience if compliance was denied. 

Then The Second Church, in the person of In- 
crease Mather, its pastor, and one doubtless of the 
bravest, — if not the bravest, — clearest-headed, ablest 
men in the colony, came to the front; and, during 
the five years of oppression and tyranny which fol- 
lowed, he was the leading spirit in stimulating and 
encouraging the people to protest, appeal, and re- 
sistance, until in 1688 he was sent to England bear- 
ing the address of the " churches," mind you, not 
of the " Good Government Clubs," the " Citizens' 
Reform Associations," or any other such second- 
rate substitutes of modern times, but of all the 
"churches," of which our neighbor, now known as 
the " Old South," was by that time one, to " solicit " 
at the foot of the throne the royal "clemency and 
protection." How successful he was in this mis- 
sion the history of the time and of Massachusetts to 
this day bears abundant evidence. 

Affain durinor the war of the Revolution The 
Second Church, led by another of its pastors, 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 151 

John Lathrop, was so prominent in fomenting re- 
sistance to British authority that General Howe 
dubbed it a " nest of traitors," and permitted 
its meeting-house, the " Old North," to be torn 
down. 

Coming down to our own times, we find Frederic 
W. Lincoln, who for sixty years served this church 
and congregation in various official capacities, while 
War Mayor of Boston, in the dark and trying years 
of the Rebellion, enforcing order, stimulating the 
patriotism of the citizens, quenching the draft riots 
as they were quenched in no other city of the 
Union, and steadying and upholding by counsel 
and assistance not only Governor Andrew, but 
even President Lincoln himself. 

But it is not my province to enlarge upon any of 
the themes which are to be presented to you this 
evening. So much only I feel authorized to say, to 
explain that, when the influence of The Second 
Church in America, in government, is named, we 
make no idle boast. 

And here we are called to meet the first disap- 
pointment which in any way mars the hitherto 
triumphant success of our celebration. His Excel- 
lency the Governor and the honored President of 
Harvard University, both of whom take a great 
interest in this occasion and promised to be pres- 
ent, are at the last moment detained by illness in 
their respective homes. Governor Wolcott's father 
was many years a member of this Society, and a 
member of its Standing Committee ; and the son 
remembers still with affection and interest his con- 



152 THE SECOND CHURCH IN BOSTON 

nection with the services of the Church. Twice 
a day on Sunday was then the rule. Are there 
many of these young men, from whom a possible 
future governor may be taken, ready to cheerfully 
assume such duty now? It is to his Excellency, as 
to us, a source of great regret that he cannot be in 
his place with us this evening. 

This same great pastor of ours. Increase Mather, 
found time amid his other occupations to be for 
sixteen years the President of Harvard College. It 
has been wittily said of him " that, when not busy 
caring for his church or shaping the politics of the 
colony, he w^ould step over to Cambridge and take 
charge of Harvard College." 

The presence this evening of Dr. Eliot, who 
stands conspicuously to-day as the exponent of 
progressive educational movement, not only in 
Massachusetts, but in the whole country, would 
have brought in close touch again these venerable 
institutions whose proud records seem to have a 
common starting-point. 

But, if we are deprived of the pleasure we antici- 
pated from the addresses of these gentlemen, the 
rest of our programme will be undisturbed, and a 
brilliant part of it will be Mendelssohn's " Hymn of 
Praise," one of the magnificent musical creations 
not often heard. Under the lead of our accom- 
plished Musical Director, with his excellent choir 
and brilliant instrumental and vocal assistants, we 
shall listen to a rendering of this work which may 
make us almost think it would have been enough 
to have the joy of our hearts expressed only by 
these glorious symphonies and songs. 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 1 53 

But we have closer ties with Harvard College 
than merely to have furnished it with a President. 
Samuel Mather, our first minister, was a tutor and 
the first " Fellow of the College"; Increase Mather 
received its first degree of Doctor of Divinity ; John 
Lathrop was for nearly forty years a member of its 
Corporation ; Henry Ware, Jr., was one of its pro- 
fessors ; and Emerson received his training at its 
Divinity School. So, when we would speak of the 
influence of The Second Church upon the literature 
of the two and one-half centuries of its existence, 
we turn naturally to our " foster sister," I may 
almost call her; and she responds to-night in the 
presence of Professor Francis G. Peabody, D.D., 
whom I now have the honor to present to you. 



THE INFLUENCE OF THE SECOND 
CHURCH ON AMERICAN LIT- 
ERATURE. 



O 



BY REV. FRANCIS G. PEABODV, D.D. 

NE of the most striking coincidences which 
this occasion recalls is found in the relation of 
The Second Church in Boston to the history of 
American literature. If we divide the two hun- 
dred and fifty years which VvC now commemorate 
into two periods, and distinguish the New England 
of colonial days from the New England of the mod- 
ern age, we are led at once to recall two names 
which represent by pre-eminence the literary life of 



154 THE SECOND CHURCH IN BOSTON 

these two periods ; and both of these names are 
those of ministers of this venerable church. Cotton 
Mather was the incarnation of the spirit of Puri- 
tanism, — of its strenuous and self-searching con- 
science, of its prodigious theological activity, of its 
theocratic view of government, and of its credulous 
literalism. Emerson was the prophet of the mod- 
ern American spirit, — of its buoyant idealism, its 
indifference to tradition, its sense of destiny, its con- 
fident optimism, its touch of humor, and its freedom 
in the truth. If one would interpret that strange 
phase of intellectual progress which is represented 
by New England in the first half of the eighteenth 
century, with its mingling of great learning and 
great credulity, of deep humility and vast self-con- 
fidence, of dominating ecclesiasticism and awaken- 
ing democracy, he must study it in the voluminous 
writings of Cotton Mather. If one would know 
how the character of modern American life was de- 
veloped in the first half of the present century, 
how it happened that cheerfulness, courage, candor, 
self-confidence, and hopefulness, came to be so in- 
wrought among our national instincts, he will find 
these traits expressed in their most alluring form 
in the writings of Emerson. 

What an extraordinary contrast, both of literary 
achievement and of personal character, is presented 
to us in these two pastors of The Second Church ! 
Mather was turbulent and combative, a perplexing, 
oscillating, often grotesque character. Emerson 
was singularly self-contained and incapable of con- 
troversy, consistent in character, and restrained and 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY I 



DD 



studied in his literary art. For no less than forty- 
four years Mather was minister of this church, and 
was concerned throughout that period with every 
political, social, and theological issue about him. 
In less than three years Emerson found it neces- 
sary to his peace of mind to withdraw from your 
ministry into the secluded concentration of his re- 
flective life. Mather published no less than three 
hundred and eighty-six works, dealing in the most 
discursive fashion with every variety of human in- 
terest ; and, not content with this enormous pro- 
duction of printed works, he labored for twenty 
years on a vast and unpublished commentary of 
Scripture, and sighed for yet other worlds to con- 
quer. " Is there no possibility for me," he writes 
in his diary, " to find ye time that I may contrive a 
system of the sciences, wherein the}^ shall be saved 
from vanity and corruption ? " The complete writ- 
ings of Emerson, on the other hand, might be in- 
cluded in the dimensions of a single work of his 
versatile predecessor. He left but a few score of 
essays, addresses, and poems, reiterating in ever- 
recurring and yet ever-varying expression, like the 
suggestion of a fundamental musical motif, his 
tranquil interpretation of an ideal world. Mather, 
in his relation to social reform, was aggressive, self- 
confident, and omniscient. He fulminated against 
slavery, pleaded for peace, discoursed on temper- 
ance, encouraged Christian missions, advocated in- 
oculation, accepted the Newtonian astronomy, and 
set aside one day in each week to ask himself, 
" What special subjects of affliction or objects of 



156 THE SECOND CHURCH IN BOSTON 

compassion may I take under my practical care, 
and what shall I do for them ? " Emerson's atti- 
tude toward social reform was tranquil and dis- 
passionate. He was for the most part silent in 
meetings, and his voice, as the prophet wrote of 
the Messiah, "was not heard in the street"; but, 
when the thoughtful student of the present day 
looks for the justification of his social hope, he 
lifts up his eyes to the calm teaching of Emerson, 
as to the hills from whence cometh his help. " He 
who would help himself and others," said Emer- 
son, as if thinking of the impetuous and domineer- 
ing philanthropy of Mather, " should not be a 
subject of irregularity and interrupted impulses 
of virtue, but a continent, persisting, unmovable 
person, . . . men who have in the gravity of their 
nature a quality like that of the fly-wheel in a mill. 
... It is better that joy should be spread over all 
the day in the form of strength than that it should 
be concentrated into ecstasies full of danger and 
followed b}^ reaction." 

Here are the polar opposites of personality ; 
Mather with his self-accusing, self-examining 
doubts, his quick indignations and fiery retorts, 
Emerson with his unclouded calm amid the mis- 
representations of the Pharisees, as though he had 
heard the great word, " Father, forgive them, for 
they know not what they do." Mather, in his per- 
sonal appearance, was full-robed, fuU-wigged, full- 
lipped, with heavy chin, as one combating the 
spirits of flesh and sense : Emerson was frail and 
spare, with searching eyes and gentle mien, as 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 1 57 

though he needed no deliverance from any burden 
of the flesh to wear the spiritual body of the 
resurrection. Mather's interior Hfe is a constant 
drama of temptation and inconsistency. He 
watches himself in thouQ^ht and deed, and fines 
himself for any lapse from virtue. For days he 
withdraws into meditative ecstasy, and renounces 
all the vanities and evil courses of the world, only 
to be led again into irritability or envy or scorn. 

I heard one of our young athletes once describe 
the special qualities essential to success in the 
modern science of football. The youth, he said, 
who would distinguish himself in the position of a 
" centre rush " must be possessed by a high quality 
of patience ; that is to say, this philosopher of ath- 
letics went on, the " centre rush " must watch and 
wait for the opportunity, which will soon be given 
him, to " slug " his opponent. Cotton Mather was 
qualified for this position in literary athletics. He 
restrained and humiliated his soul for brief in- 
tervals, only to smite with renewed vigor the evil 
or the evil-doer which for the moment confronted 
him. With entire justice he wrote of himself in 
one of his moments of self-abasement : " In my re- 
marks on the folly and baseness continually ex- 
pressed by our absurd and wicked people, I do not 
always preserve that meekness of wisdom which 
would adorn the doctrine of God, my Saviour. I 
will ask wisdom of God for the cure of this dis- 
temper." Emerson, on the other hand, as one of 
his biographers remarks, has little to say " of the 
horrid burden and impediment on the soul which 



158 THE SECOND CHURCH IN BOSTON 

the churches call sin." His personal life seems 
swept by no disturbing passion. His experience 
flows with the even movement of a full, deep 
stream. When he preaches, it is as one who im- 
presses chiefly "the reality of religion" with "an in- 
definite charm of simplicity and wisdom." When 
he withdraws from his ministry, it is with no stormy 
scene or wrestling of spirit, but with entire serenity 
and unruffled good-will, " Every man," he writes, 
"hath his own use." "I cannot give you," he 
says again, " one of the arguments you earnestly 
hint at ; for I do not know what arguments mean 
in reference to an expression of thought." It is 
difificult to imagine what Cotton Mather could 
have said to a person who made such a reply. To 
attack such an unresisting medium would be as if 
one should assail the atmosphere, only to find it 
tranquilly flowing back with perfect elasticity, and 
invitino^ one to breathe it anew. 

So stand these two opposite types of literary dis- 
tinction in the history of The Second Church in 
Boston. It is as if the past and the present stood 
face to face. It is impossible to imagine a rever- 
sion of literature or theology to the type of Cotton 
Mather. It is almost equally impossible to imagine 
any future evolution of literature or theology which 
shall carry us far from the illuminating aphorisms 
and the comprehensive theism of Emerson. Cotton 
Mather was, as one of his most observing biog- 
raphers has remarked, a Puritan priest who was un- 
aware of the fact that " Protestantism can have no 
priesthood." Emerson, on the other hand, was re- 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 1 59 

pelled by even that vestige of sacerdotalism which 
he discovered in the administration of the Lord's 
Supper, and gave himself wholly to the part of a 
prophet of the Eternal. 

Yet what strange affinities appear in these remote 
and contrasted types ! Both of these men, in their 
literary achievements, were distinguished by origi- 
nality, candor, and courage. 

Cotton Mather was in many ways as sympathetic 
toward unfamiliar and even unpopular thought as 
Emerson. Precisely as Emerson's intellectual sym- 
pathy crossed the sea and found companionship 
among the German philosophers, so Mather, in 
what was probably the first contact of the American 
mind with Germany, corresponded with the Ger- 
man professor and philanthropist, Francke, and 
learned from him of what he called " the warmth 
from the fire of God which flames in the heart of 
Germany." With the same spirit in which stu- 
dents from Harvard University migrate to the Uni- 
versity of Halle in pursuit of the higher learning, 
Cotton Mather two hundred years ago desired to 
import the higher scholarship of his time to our 
seat of learning. " I will make a present," he wrote, 
" into our poor colledge of certain books that are of 
great improvement and influence in the famous 
Frederician University, and of a tendency to correct 
the present wretched method of education here." 
Even the literary style of the two men, though as 
different as diffusiveness and artificiality are from 
compactness and precision, show a kinship in orig- 
inality, independence, and self-mastery. In both 



l6o THE SECOND CHURCH IN BOSTON 

there is complete subordination of form to thought, 
and perfect liberty from constraint and self-display. 
" There has been," says Cotton Mather, as if de- 
scribing the writing of Emerson, " a deal of ado 
about a style, so much that I must offer you my 
sentiment upon it. There is a way of writing 
wherein . . . the writer pretends not to reading. Yet 
he could not have written as he does if he had not 
read very much in his time ; and his composures 
are not only a cloth of gold, but also stuck with as 
many jewels as the gown of a Russian ambassador." 
And for himself he says : " I can truly say that I 
have studiously set aside that care of embellishing. 
I have dropped a world of what some would call 
ornaments which, while I was writing, offered them- 
selves to my mind." 

Both of these men, moreover, the priest and the 
prophet, were at one in their supreme devotion to 
the religious life. To Mather, it is true, religion 
was beset by dogmatic tests and Biblical literalism : 
to Emerson religion, as he wrote, was to come " full 
circle," to show the identity " of the law of gravita- 
tion with purity of heart," and to prove " Duty to 
be one thing with Science, with Beauty, and with 
Joy." Yet the prophet of religion has no funda- 
mental controversy with its priest. " It is an office," 
Emerson himself says, " which is coeval with the 
world." " A man enamoured of this excellency be- 
comes its priest or poet." Wherever, then, a true 
priest, in however mistaken forms, has truly served 
his altar, there the true prophet finds a work which, 
as the greatest of prophets said, he comes " not to 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY l6l 

destroy, but to fulfil." It is Emerson, not Mather, 
who says of the Christian religion : " Two inesti- 
mable advantages Christianity has given us : first, 
the Sabbath, the jubilee of the whole world ; and, 
secondly, the institution of preaching, ... to cheer 
the waiting and fainting hearts of men with new 
hope and new revelation." 

Finally, these two great names in the history of 
literature unite in indicating to us the natural limits 
and the legitimate place of the preacher in the 
modern world. For the universal genius of a 
Mather and his priestly authority in all spheres of 
life, the pulpit no longer offers an opportunity. 
Indeed, it may almost be said that there is no place 
in the modern world for omniscience and self-asser- 
tive learning, equally at home in history, science, 
reform, administration, and preaching. The spe- 
cialization of modern life has set stern limits 
around each vocation ; and few men are foolish 
enough to risk that saying which was spoken of 
the distinguished Whewell, that " science was his 
forte, and omniscience his foible." On the other 
hand, it is equally evident that the proper sphere 
for the great work of Emerson did not lie within 
the limits of the pastoral oiBce, and that one of the 
chief services of The Second Church to the world 
was in giving to its young minister an easy escape 
from the preacher's calling. It was not merely a 
failure to modify a special form of worship which 
determined his change of career. He had at 
bottom a view of life and of duty which in any 
event would have soon led him to withdraw. His 



1 62 THE SECOND CHURCH IN BOSTON 

sermons are marked by few of those great qualities 
which were so soon the fruit of his seclusion and 
independence. His transition to Concord was as if 
a caged bird had found the liberty of the woods, 
and had at once soared and sung. 

Do such admissions, however, indicate that the 
office of the minister is either inadequate or super- 
fluous or subordinate? On the contrary, they give 
to the ministry precisely that limitation and defini- 
tion which establishes its place in the varied life of 
modern society. The pulpit is not the throne of a 
theolo2:ical dictator like Mather, nor the medium of 
a spiritual philosophy like that of Emerson. It is 
no more an indictment of the preacher's function 
to observe that it was inconsistent with Emerson's 
solitude of soul than to observe that it is no longer 
possible to unite the duties of minister of The 
Second Church with the duties of the President 
of Harvard College, as Increase Mather united 
these duties for seventeen years, and as Cotton 
Mather much desired to unite them. Let us accept 
with gladness the special task which distinguishes 
the Christian ministry from these great representa- 
tives of the history of literature. There is a point 
in which the functions of the priest and of the 
prophet meet, and create a work less ambitious 
than these which we have traced, but not less es- 
sential for the common good. It is the work of the 
Christian pastor, the shepherd of the religious life, 
who, when he putteth forth his sheep, goeth before, 
and the sheep, knowing his voice, follow him. 

We turn once more to the records of The Second 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 1 63 

Church, and many such faithful, humble-minded 
pastors stand before us. Let us recall but one of 
them. Henry Ware, Jr., was, as compared with the 
massive learning of Mather or the spiritual insight 
of Emerson, an insignificant person in the history 
of literature. From the point of view, however, of 
The Second Church, he was nearer than either of 
his greater associates to the ideal of a Christian 
pastor. He was not an accomplished scholar or a 
thrilling preacher. His literary contributions are 
no longer read, and, with perhaps a single excep- 
tion, were never widely read. If, however, the 
formative influences of the successive preachers of 
this church could be now identified among the 
saints in heaven, a full proportion of profound 
changes of human character in the history of this 
people would be traced to the simple, unaffected, 
sincere piety of the ministry of Henry Ware. 

Let us not deceive ourselves as we trace the in- 
fluences on literature which this church has been 
permitted to exert. These effects of a church are, 
after all, accidental and occasional. Sometimes the 
literary achievement may overshadow the preacher's 
office, as in the case of Mather. Sometimes it may 
repel from the preacher's offlce, as in the case 
of Emerson. Meantime, amid the world of litera- 
ture there still remains an opportunity, more 
humble in its pretensions, more ephemeral in its 
reputation, but quite as creative and transforming 
in its effect, for the faithful pastor of a faithful 
flock, — the true priest, who finds in forms their 
spiritual symbolism, the true prophet, who preaches 



1 64 THE SECOND CHURCH IN BOSTON 

truth which is eternally real to him. Among the 
great words of the scholars and the poets there is 
still a place for that word which is made flesh in 
the pastor's life, and which dwells among us, with 
its example and leadership, full of grace and truth. 



In introducing Dr. Hale, Mr. Crosby said : — 

And now it is my great pleasure to present to you one 
whom we all know and recognize as the Nestor of our 
faith, one who is an appreciative and charitable critic of 
the past, full of confidence in the present, and equally full 
of hope and trust in the great power and sweetness of the 
future, one who needs no introduction, Edward Everett 
Hale. 



ADDRESS. 

BY THE REV. EDWARD EVERETT HALE, D.D. 

'TpHE religious history of a church like this is 
written in the lives of the thousands on 
thousands whom it has trained and of those whom 
they have trained, — of hundreds of thousands. 

And this means in their eternal lives. 

Clearly enough, the visible expression of that 
history is made most distinctly for you and me, in 
the lives and the work of the official servants of 
such a church, — of the men who have preached in 
its pulpit, have counselled its members and been 
counselled by them. The lives and work of men 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 1 65 

who have christened their children, and have 
seen them grow up into men and women, are an 
exponent of what was the quaUty and intensity of 
the Christianity of their time. It is one of the 
simple miracles of our Congregational order that 
a body of God-loving and intelligent people do 
choose from men like themselves an official servant, 
who is at once teacher and learner, helper and 
helped, one sent and one sending. He is leader 
and led. They choose him because they think he 
is near to God, and can help them see God and 
hear him. They ask him to do so, and they help 
him to do so. He teaches them, and they teach 
him. Like master, like man; like preacher, like 
hearer. The congregation makes the man, in a 
thousand subtle agencies, as the man by a thou- 
sand makes the congregation. 

The history of this church presents several lives 
to us of such men, who have filled notable places in 
the larger history of the world. It records many 
other names of preachers, of whom, as the Book of 
Ecclesiasticus would say, there is no memorial, but 
of whom, all the same, the work was solid, so that 
they need no memorial. I will not try — what 
would be a pleasant thing to do — to recall from 
forgetfulness some of these names. There is no 
dishonorable name on the long record, though 
there are forgotten names. But I can and will say 
something, first, of the lives of the Mathers in the 
first century of your history, and then of the lives 
of two men in this century who are not forgotten 
and cannot be. 



1 66 THE SECOND CHURCH IN BOSTON 

Increase Mather and Cotton Mather, the father 
and the son, were the ministers of this church for 
more than two generations. In that period Boston 
was wholly changed. At the beginning here was 
a little village, of perhaps five thousand people, 
unknown to the world. At the end of it the com- 
merce of Boston was larger than that of Scotland 
and Ireland combined, and her dealings were with 
almost every port in Europe. The Mathers and 
their people were doing their best, in all this time, 
to infuse a Divine Life into such human affairs. I 
could easily spend the evening in briefly describing 
thousands of forms of generous activity in which 
they led and pushed, coaxpd and goaded Boston 
into a life ideal, and not material, — life to the glory 
of God, and not the glory of Mammon or Baal 
or Dagon. 

In more than a thousand of such efforts, one 
of the Mathers made a horrible mistake, which is 
always remembered against him, the younger of 
the two. But then and there he was acting from 
a noble motive, and even that Salem witchcraft 
misery was an effort to carry forward the " will of 
God " as he supposed God's will to be. 

Simply, — and this is all-important, — the Mathers, 
father and son, meant that God should rule this 
world, the devil should not, and that man should 
not, except by God's order. They really meant 
that the people around them should live to God's 
glory, and not for their own petty profit or pelf. 
In their mistakes and in their successes they 
stand thus for the genuine Puritan theory that 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 1 67 

religion must not be parted from daily life. God's 
glory first, God's glory second, God's glory all the 
time. 

This means, in our language. Public Spirit. It 
means public spirit as distinct from private com- 
fort or private wealth. It means God's will in the 
whole of the community, — at the town dock, in 
the public schools, in the nursery, on Cornhill, or 
on the Common. It means this in contrast with 
what is meant by a " religious administration " which 
is conducted by companies of priests who keep 
outside the world and occupy themselves with 
trumpets and bells and incense and processions 
and altar covers and other ordinances of service. 
It means a church of the people, carried on by the 
people and carried on for the people. 

Of all this you can find no better types than the 
two Mathers. The subjects of their sermons are 
what we should call pre-eminently secular ; that 
is, they are subjects of the time when they are 
spoken. Earthquakes, murders, piracy, schools, 
government, charters. General Courts, — whatever in 
later times the daily press discusses, these men 
discuss in The Second Church and at the Thursday 
Lecture. 

In the course of such work for Monday, Tuesday, 
and Wednesday, they fell foul, alas ! of the Salem 
witchcraft. They did not create it, but it found 
them. The father, Increase Mather, opposed the 
madness of the affair with all his might. But 
Cotton Mather, the son, held, alas ! a brief 
for the other side. He was now only thirty 



1 68 THE SECOND CHURCH IN BOSTON 

years old. As a young man, he had years before 
written a book on " Invisible Wonders." It is not 
a whit more absurd than the absurd books which 
absurd people read and write to-day. In that book 
he had granted the existence of people possessed 
by evil spirits, just as similar writers do to-day, 
just as the Bible does. When the Salem prosecu- 
tions came on, he would not and did not disdain his 
earlier words. That devilish pride of consistency 
held him to what had been written ; and so he is 
charged to-day, in history, with bringing on the 
catastrophe. Appleton's Cyclopaedia says, coolly, 
the prosecutions were abetted and mainly carried 
on by Cotton Mather ; and afterward, when our 
poor old Judge Sewall confessed in penance his 
shame and error. Cotton Mather — yes, for thirty 
years more of life — would not own that he was 
wrong. 

This shows cowardice, it shows weakness, it 
shows the accursed danger of books, it shows per- 
sonal narrowness. But it is hard to call it inten- 
tional wickedness. And it does show also what I 
called the Puritan determination, that God shall 
rule, his will shall be done — shall — on earth as 
in heaven. Alas that they construed his will so 
badly ! 

Now we must not say that it was right for Cot- 
ton Mather to use the pulpit for temperance, for the 
slaves, for suppressing street profanity, for health, 
for education, for inoculation, and then turn and say 
that he ought not to have interfered in the witch- 
craft trials. All we can say is that he ought to 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 1 69 

have judged right in such matters, and that he did 
judge wrong. 

For which, perhaps, I ought not to ask you to for- 
give him. We know so much, and it is so certain 
that we are always right, that we find it hard to for- 
give him that he was in this case wholly wrong. 

But we will remember that for the nearly forty 
years of his ministry he was working against slav- 
ery, against intemperance, for the schools, against 
the devil, and that he was trying — in a stupid way, 
if you please — to make others do so. He forced 
inoculation upon Boston, with the help of Boylston, 
when half the medical profession and the most of 
the town were against him! 

He has been judged before now, and the verdicts 
are on record. We cannot change them if we 
would. Certainly, of the high award of that Infi- 
nite Tribunal where justice and mercy always 
meet tosrether, — the tribunal which assigned to him 
long ago his duties and his place in larger worlds 
than this, — I can say nothing. No ! I have not 
enough, thank God, of the impiety of the theolo- 
gians. 

But on that other estimate which mankind should 
place on him, I have sometimes pondered. I have 
fancied what might happen if we had now a perma- 
nent tribunal of great statesmen, great jurists, great 
men, who, after a century and a half, might have 
the duty of revising the somewhat ephemeral judg- 
ments of our lower courts. May we imagine, per- 
haps, such a court — James Martineau, Benjamin 
Harrison, and the Baron de Staal — intrusted yes- 



170 THE SECOND CHURCH IN BOSTON 

terday with such a revision of the Mather verdicts ? 
May I imagine the counsel for the poor man there 
with his brief, and the chief justice questioning him ? 
" What do you say, sir, about this miserable 
witchcraft business ? " " Oh ! we say as little as 
we can, may it please the court. We say that, 
when he was almost a boy, he had abridged the 
science of the time, which was all wrong. We say 
that then he had not courage enough nor sense 
enough to oppose the science of his day. But 
we find no wilful selfishness nor moral obliquity 
in that stupidity. We admit ignorance and stu- 
pidity." 

" Note that, Mr. Clerk. Ignorance and stupidity 
are admitted." 

" Yes, my lord, ignorance, obstinacy, and stupid- 
ity. But in asking for a revision of the world's 
judgment, if the court please, we offer this little 
memorandum of Benjamin Franklin's. 

" Oh, Ben Franklin ! There was integrity and 
courage, backward sense and forward sense. What 
does Franklin say ? Read the note, Mr. Clerk, if it 
is not too long." 

And the clerk reads : " Benjamin Franklin to 
Samuel Mather. There was a book of your 
father's, ' Essays to do Good,' which I read in boy- 
hood.* If I have been, as you seem to think, a 
useful citizen, the public owes the advantage of it 
to that book." 

" Does Ben Franklin say that ? Do you note that, 
gentlemen, — all the use that he has been to this 

*Passy, May 12, 1784. 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY I71 

world, — all of it ? That is a great deal. All this 
electrical science born from Franklin's discoveries, 
all this practical education suggested by Frank- 
lin's benevolence, all these public libraries, fostered 
even in their infancy by him, all these devices for 
human comfort, all these refuges for orphans, these 
schools and colleges for men, and, above all, peace 
between England and America, the statesmanship 
of that great treaty which made friends of the two 
empires which should never be enemies, — all this 
work, which makes Franklin Franklin, all this is 
due to one book of this poor criminal. Cotton 
Mather. 

" Gentlemen, really, I think, we must not be too 
hard on the conservative obstinacy in youth of a 
badly taught young man." 

The simple truth is, if anybody cares, that the 
witchcraft horrors sprang from the folly and mad- 
ness of the theory then held as to written Script- 
ure, — the theory in which Cotton Mather had been 
bred, " A witch shall surely die." Those are the 
words in this Bible. If such words are the present 
voice of the present God, — and Cotton Mather 
had been taught that they were, and believed they 
were, — why, he was compelled, and the Danvers 
judges were compelled, to follow, — fated to the 
horrid plunge they made with him. 

Now it is not hard to see that the memory of an 
influence so horrible did its blessed work in a hun- 
dred years. That fatal error wrought out the truth, 
which The Second Church of later times has done 
its share in proclaiming since, that the whole word 



172 THE SECOND CHURCH IN BOSTON 

of God cannot be carved in stone, — no, nor 
chained upon paper. Remember that " God made 
known his ways unto Moses," not his words, — " his 
acts unto the children of Israel." The word is 
nearer. The word is very nigh thee, — in thy heart 
and in thy mouth. 

Yes, the letter killeth. The letter of Moses 
killed those fifty witches at Salem. But the Spirit 
giveth Life ; and the Spirit gives us at last such men 
in our pulpit as Henry Ware, as Waldo Emerson. 

Only one hundred and one years after the Salem 
witchcraft Henry Ware was born. From the hills 
of his birthplace, Hingham, you can see the blue 
line of Salem, five-and-twenty miles across the bay. 
One century, — enough to make the difference be- 
tween the Salem of the witchcraft and the Salem of 
Bentley and Lowell and Cabot, the men of the India 
trade and of the constitution of Massachusetts. 
There were men at Wares christening who had 
heard Cotton Mather preach, I suppose. 

And the difference — morally, spiritually, yes, 
and physically and socially — is like the difference 
between the planet Mars and the planet Terra, if 
that be the name they give us in Mars. 

The religion taught and preached in that century 
by such men as Cotton Mather and his successors, 
by the two Eliots at the North End, by Jonathan 
Mayhew at the West Church, by Oliver Everett in 
the New South, and by Charles Chauncy at the 
First Church, is a sort of religion which from such 
men as Cotton and Mayo and Increase and Cotton 
Mather, evolves such men in less than three gener- 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 1 73 

ations as Henry Ware and Ralph Waldo Emerson. 
For Ware and Emerson both grew up in these 
conditions of the Puritan religion of the Bay. 

In their time, as I happen to know, the world 
tried to think that these two prophets were far 
apart. 

In truth, as we know, they were both exponents 
of the central gospel of all religion, — " Where ye go, 
preach, saying, The kingdom of God is at hand." 

" God is here, God is nowT It is the religion 
of Pope Pius on the Seven Hills. It is the religion 
of the miner who is kneeling by his child's bed- 
side in the Montana hills to-night. The centre of 
all religion, the only religion worth the words it 
speaks, the religion of our own Unitarian Church, 
which is " the Church of the Holy Spirit." 

Yet with these ears I have heard Henry Ware 
discuss that puzzle of the definition of Person, — 
what Person is and what it is not, — which seems at 
once such a riddle and such a fascination to men as 
young as he was. And / suppose that the hearers 
supposed that he supposed that he was in antago- 
nism to Waldo Emerson ; and yet it is certain that at 
that same moment Emerson was saying some word 
which was making more clear to some dazed, 
puzzled child of God that God is here, that God is 
now, that he and God are one, if he will. 

Personal religion ! That I also partake of the 
divine nature, that God is with us, — Emanuel. Not 
God with him, not God with one prophet or two ; 
but that, if ze/^seek him, surely z£/<? shall find him, if we 
seek for him with all c'z/r hearts. Here is the religion 



174 ^^^ SECOND CHURCH IN BOSTON 

of Emerson, the religion of the Wares, the religion 
of Channing as of Martineau, of Swedenborg, as of 
Whitefield and Wesley, and George Fox and Jacob 
Boehme, the religion of Owen Feltham and De Sales 
and Saint Francis, the religion of every mother 
who ever taught her boy to say " Our Father," of 
every child who lisped the word so taught him, — 
the religion for which the Saviour died, for which 
Paul was beheaded and Peter crucified, the re- 
ligion in which David sang and Isaiah spoke, the 
religion in which God said, " I am," to Moses, and 
the whole world replied, " Thou art." 

Of all prophets speaking the English language 
in our time, it has been given to Ralph Waldo 
Emerson, the minister of the Second Church, to 
make this proclamation with most persuasive power, 
" The reign of God is here," the kingdom of God 
is at hand. 

In that miner's camp in Montana the well-worn 
volume of the " Essays " lies behind the powder- 
horn. In the cupboard of the starving student in 
Paris, where, alas ! there is no Bible, there is the 
essence of the Bible in these same " Essays." In 
the cabinet of the Emperor of Russia lies the trans- 
lation of Emerson. And under the shadow of the 
mainsail, in the heat of the summer sun, as at this 
moment your cousin rounds Cape Horn, he is at 
this moment reading his Emerson. Here are lines 
which go out to all times. Here is the word which 
goes to the end of the world. 

Blessed be the church, and honored, whose pulpit 
is proud to echo the Eternal Voice, even as it was 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 1 75 

spoken by such men. Thanks to the God who has 
led it out from the worship of stones or of the 
carving upon stones, from any idolatry of any 
letter, into the fulness of life, into the very free- 
dom of Christ himself. The letter killeth, but the 
Spirit giveth Life; and, for the future, prayers 
and hopes. How blessed a thing this is, that we 
should be called " the children of God " ! 

After the chorus following Dr. Hale's speech, Mr. 
Crosby asked the congregation to join in the national 
hymn, " America," in the spirit of enthusiasm and 
thankfulness that should mark those who felt the duty of 
their obligation to the generations whose labors, priva- 
tions, and sacrifices had made possible the glorious 
America which we possess, and that the congregation 
should adopt a custom of the fathers, and rise and turn 
their faces to the choir. 

A benediction was pronounced by Dr. Hale. 



SERMON. 

BY THE REV. THOMAS VAN NESS. 

November 26, 1899. 

Forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth 
unto those things which are before, I press forward toward the mark 
for the prize of the high caUing of God. — Phil. 

TF any man had a right to look back with pride 
and pleasure upon his past life, that man was 
Paul. As he sat there in his prison at Rome, 
writing letters to the various infant churches in 
Macedonia and Asia Minor, what more natural 
than to indulge in reminiscences, to tell of his 
wanderings, his imprisonment, his remarkable ex- 
periences on sea and land, or his audience with 
King Agrippa, with Festus ? Surely, any one with 
such a record might well have been pardoned if he 
had written about himself and drawn from his per- 
sonal career lessons of God's care and providence. 
What I particularly like about Paul is that he 
does not boast, is not puffed up or carried off his 
feet, as we say to-day, by a sense of his own impor- 
tance. He does not dwell on what he has accom- 
plished ; for every achievement is but a prelude to 
something better, higher, further off. Therefore, 
he has no time to talk of past deeds. As soon as a 
project is brought to a successful issue, Paul puts 
it out of his mind, " forgets it," as it were, so that 
he may bend all his energies to pressing forward 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 1 77 

toward something else, and thus eventually win the 
prize of the high calling of God. 

You see two boys at college. One impresses 
you as much brighter and quicker than the other, 
possessed of more native ability. Concerning him 
you predict great things, a brilliant future. Fif- 
teen or twenty years pass, and you need to revise 
your judgment. The young man from whom you 
expected so much, it is true, leads an honorable 
life, but beyond that, little more can be said of him ; 
while of the other you are forced to say that he is 
steadily growing in influence, and will undoubtedly 
make an indelible mark upon the world. 

How does it happen that your judgment was 
so in error? Had the second youth any special 
faculty which you failed to note ? No, the dif- 
ference between the two young men was the 
difference between possessing vision and no vision. 
The one upon whom you counted was satisfied 
with the conventional standards, measured himself 
by those around him, by their acquisitions, did not 
care to become anything more. The other youth 
in early life had put before his mind an ideal, per- 
haps unattainable, but, nevertheless, a continual 
incentive to renewed exertion. Because of that 
ideal he was never quite satisfied to rest on what 
had been done, but, like the apostle, was ever 
reaching forth and pressing on, — in short, was de- 
veloping and becoming more noble, strong, and 
influential. 

" What position does he hold ? " " To whom is 
she related ? " " How much is he worth ? " By 



178 THE SECOND CHURCH IN BOSTON 

these questions and the answers which they elicit 
we try to fix the place of a man or a woman in 
society or the business world. If we really desire 
to know the relative standing of people, it would be 
much better to inquire concerning their ambitions 
and their aspirations. What are his desires ? 
What his ideals ? Has he a vision ? Does he 
reach forward and press on toward some goal } If 
so, then of that particular person we can safely 
predict an ever expanding, never failing life. 

Average abilities conscientiously used often be- 
come the most effective ; for it is a fact which all 
history goes to prove that capacity grows out of 
desire, or, as Lowell puts it, in an exaggerated line, 

" Perhaps the longing to be so 
Helps make the soul immortal." 

Yes, the desire, the longing, to be something has 
undoubtedly conferred earthly immortality on more 
than one whose name is now written on the death- 
less roll of fame. 

For the last two weeks we have been standing 
in the blaze of glory which shines down from the 
pathway of our memorable past. As a church, we 
have a record, a history, which gives us, deservedly, 
the right to be proud and self-congratulatory ; but 
now the question comes. What is to be our temper 
of mind toward that past and the achievements of 
our forefathers ? Are we to be contented with the 
position attained, or does that past stimulate us to 
renewed effort ? In other words, have we desires 
and ambitions or have we not } Is there some 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 1 79 

vision continually beckoning us on and upward, 
such as the vision of our Puritan ancestors, — 
a vision of a regenerated earth, of a new common- 
wealth, of the coming of the kingdom of God ? 

On this first Sunday of a new church century it 
behooves us to ask this question, and to pause for 
its very serious consideration. A certain well- 
known official, who for the last three years has 
been much in the public eye, recently made a plea 
for what he calls the strenuous life, — the life of 
daring and doing. He is trying to awake the 
American youth to the fact that struggle, fight, 
work, are essential, not simply in order to achieve, 
but in order to exist at all, in order to keep from 
decay and death. 

The strenuous life ! But that is what Paul was 
preaching, — yes, and living. As he so clearly 
points out, all one's toil and work will come to 
naught if there is not in mind some definite goal. 

A definite goal ! This at once gives singleness 
of purpose. It reduces effort from a complex to a 
simple thing. You see many people pressing for- 
ward to-day, but in zigzag directions. Conse- 
quently, the result of their work is scattering, in- 
effective. 

To keep this church in the future from dissipat- 
ing its energy, it is needful for us to concentrate 
effort, to have a plan, a purpose, a mark toward 
which we shall move, as has the swimmer making 
for the shore or the runner in a race. At once this 
will give to all our thought and all our work a 
unity of effect, and amazingly increase our power. 



l8o THE SECOND CHURCH IN BOSTON 

So much settled, the question comes, In what 
direction shall we move ? What shall be our ulti- 
mate goal ? 

What better than that which our Puritan ances- 
tors put before themselves as the one thing worthy 
of accomplishment ? 

If there is an historical fact well settled to-day, it 
is the purpose which animated our Puritan fore- 
fathers, the reason why they left England and came 
to this bleak and desolate coast of New England. 
They came here, not as did the French Jesuits to 
Canada, because their hearts were aflame with a 
desire to save souls, nor like missionaries, because 
they had some special creed or doctrine which they 
wished to preach to every living creature on the 
face of the earth ; but they came because they had 
a certain theory of government, a certain rule of 
conduct, a certain very definite idea of life. They 
were intent upon establishing here a Puritan com- 
monwealth, "a Church without a bishop, a State 
without a king." To put it in a sentence, they 
wanted to establish here the kingdom of God. 

It is foreign to the point, and a remark worthy 
only of a cynic, to say that they established more 
nearly the kingdom of the devil. I am not now 
talking of what they did or did not accomplish. I 
am simply trying to make clear what was their aim, 
their one great desire. 

Can we put before ourselves a better, a more 
worthy object.? 

Suppose for the moment you agree with me that 
to try to establish here in New England, in Massa- 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY l8l 

chusetts, in Boston, the kingdom of God, is an aim 
quite worthy enough for which to strive. See how 
that at once simpUfies our future church poHcy. 

Hereafter we can Hsten with respect and sym- 
pathy to far-off missionary appeals for help, to those 
who believe our chief duty is to spread the gospel 
in Japan, in the hills of India, in Hungary, among 
the Molokains of the Trans-Caucasus ; but to one 
and all such appeals we can kindly, but firmly, re- 
turn the answer: " This is not our direct work, not 
the especial thing for which we were founded. We 
wish you God-speed in your efforts ; but we must 
not scatter our energies, cannot turn aside to do 
your particular work. Our duty is to reach forth 
and press onward toward our own special goal." 

This, too, separates our pulpit from those given 
over to the promulgation of some particular creed, 
some particular doctrine, and, as a consequence, 
will keep us from theological controversy and ec- 
clesiastical strife. " No," we can say to our more 
zealous denominational friends, " our chief work 
is not, as you think, to combat wrong doctrine, 
to show the exact difference between Orthodoxy 
and Unitarianism, to define the belief which each 
member must have, to point out the existing errors 
in Presbyterianism or Lutheranism. Speculation, 
philosophy, metaphysics in a way are implied 
in the very fact that we are a church ; but, 
as a church, we were not founded to preach 
some certain theory of the universe. If we did, 
then that theory in time might pass away, as did 
the theory of the universe preached by Cotton 



102 THE SECOND CHURCH IN BOSTON 

Mather. Or, if we maintained some particular type 
of metaphysics, then that, too, in time would be- 
come obsolete, as have the metaphysical systems of 
the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. No, The 
Second Church was founded, as its original cove- 
nant plainly states, because its incorporators desired 
God to dwell among them and to acknowledge 
them as his people, and, further, so that God's king- 
dom and grace might be advanced by them. 
Again, then, we can say, as did they : — 

We desire God to dwell among us ; 

We pray that by the character of our lives he may own us as 
his people ; and 

We resolve that God's kingdom and grace shall he adi'anced 
by us. 

Having now set before ourselves this original aim 
and object of our forefathers, having definitely in 
mind the task that is set us to do, let us each indi- 
vidually say, in the language of Paul, " Forgetting 
those things which are behind and reaching for- 
ward unto those things which are before, I press 
forward toward the mark for the prize of the high 
calling of God." . . . 

The practical member, right here, very naturally 
asks, " But in what way do you think The Second 
Church in Boston can best advance God's kingdom 
and grace } " 

The question deserves a direct answer; but, be- 
fore we attempt to answer it, let us look at one or 
two things connected with our late celebration. 

Did you notice — but, of course, you must — how, 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 1 83 

not by premeditated action, but by a sort of in- 
tuitive feeling, all the speakers singled out three 
epochs in the life of the church. Those three epochs 
are connected with the names of three ministers, — 
Increase Mather, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and 
Henry Ware, Jr. 

For what did those three men especially stand ? 
Increase Mather was not as great a preacher as his 
son ; Emerson was one of the poorest pastors ; and 
Henry Ware, Jr., could not rank with Lathrop as a 
controversialist, nor, indeed, with those who came 
after him as a public speaker. Why, then, by com- 
mon consent, are these three ministers singled out 
from all the rest as representative.'' What did they 
say or do which the world does not wish to forget ? 
for, if we can find that out, then we may be sure 
that those same characteristics will be needful in the 
future, and must be embodied in any policy of the 
church, if it is to be successful. 

I think you will agree once again with me, when 
I say that Increase Mather is not remembered to- 
day for his preaching, — for much of it was rubbish ; 
nor is he remembered by his books and literary 
productions, — for those books are consigned to the 
upper shelf and never read. But he is remem- 
bered with respect and admiration because of his 
courage, of that highest kind of courage, — moral 
courage. 

Let any one of you put yourself in his place, and 
ask what, under the same circumstances, you would 
have done in those momentous days when the in- 
dependence of the Massachusetts Colony hung in 



184 THE SECOND CHURCH IN BOSTON 

the balance, and you will realize more vividly the 
amount of soul bravery it required on Mather's 
part to risk his position, his influence with the 
ruling powers, his very life, as he did, for the civic 
formation of his native town. 

Then come to Emerson. What was the distinct 
note in his preaching ? 

You had your answer first in the address given 
last Sunday by the young man who represented 
the National Religious Union, and afterward, on 
Monday, in the closing remarks of Edward Everett 
Hale. 

Mr. Eaton said, and said truly, that through 
Emerson he came to know himself. In that essay 
on Self-reliance are these words : " Never imitate : 
abide in the simple and noble regions of your life. 
Obey your heart, and you shall reproduce the fore 
world again." 

In picking up my own volume of Essays, I find 
that back in 1879, just twenty years ago, I came 
across that very passage ; and it revolutionized my 
whole inner life, so that since then I have never 
consciously imitated any one in speech, thought, 
action, or way of looking at events. I make this 
personal confession simply as added testimony. 
Yes, Emerson helps to give us confidence in our- 
selves and our own thoughts, — makes us appre- 
ciate how noble and God-like we are. His is dis- 
tinctly a message of cheer. When you have once 
read his essay on Compensation, you feel from then 
on, no matter what be taken, no matter what your 
losses, that you are not utterly bereft ; for some- 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 1 85 

thing else of equal virtue and profit has been 
slipped into the vacant place, and that you may 
still enjoy. 

Cheer and hope! I think those two words char- 
acterize the message of Emerson, — cheer and 
hope. Do you think the time will ever come when 
men and women will not want to be cheered and 
inspired to greater things } or when they will not 
want to be lifted up above the humdrum common 
level by a great hope, which whispers to them of 
their immortality and kinship with the Eternal 
God? 

And what of Henry Ware, Jr. ? What especially 
distinguished his pastorate from the others ? We 
are told that during the time he was minister The 
Second Church knew a distinct revival, and at- 
tained as great strength as during the best period 
of the Mathers. How was this revival brought 
about ? I think I am able to say, after reading his 
memoirs given me by that dear old parishioner, 
Mrs. Burdett, now some ninety-three years of age, 
who knew Mr. Ware very intimately. 

I find, among other characterizations, this, which 
I believe correct : " Mr. Ware had an entire sympa- 
thy with and love of mankind under all circum- 
stances and conditions, with all degrees of cultiva- 
tion, and with every variety of moral character. 
This had much to do with his power of exercising 
influence over all classes of men." " Mr. Ware," 
says another writer, " was the embodiment of sym- 
pathy. When with him, all sorts and conditions of 
men forgot their differences, and were made one 
in a common fellowship." 



1 86 THE SECOND CHURCH IN BOSTON 

There you have the secret in those last words. 
Mr. Ware was able to establish a common fellow- 
ship. In a period when social differences were ac- 
centuated, at a time when class distinctions divided 
men into various little cliques, Mr. Ware broke 
down such arbitrary differences, and through 
Christian fellowship united all his people on the 
one great plane of human brotherhood. 

Courage, cheer, fellowship, — for these three 
things do we especially remember Mather, Em- 
erson, and Ware. These are the characteristics 
which they contributed to the stream of Second 
Church life, and these are the things which must 
still be embodied in the teachings and articles of 
The Second Church if it desires to go successfully 
forward into the twentieth century. 

Now we are ready to answer the question of the 
practical man who asks in what way we think this 
church can best advance God's kingdom and grace 
here in Boston. 

First, we should say, in not limiting our interests 
or subjects of consideration to those things which 
simply affect our own personal life and prosperity, 
but in being interested in every civic matter which 
makes for a healthy municipality. This pulpit, the 
members of this church, must be awake to the 
duties of citizejiship. As a church, we must work 
for good government, for an honest administration, 
for a clean and intelligent democracy. This means 
an interest in our public schools, in our libraries 
and art galleries, in our highways and common 
parks, in our water supply and gas supply, in our 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 1 87 

philanthropic and charitable institutions. Not 
now, as when Increase Mather lived, does a king 
threaten our liberties ; but none the less are those 
liberties in peril from political wire-pullers and con- 
scienceless corporations. Read how almost impos- 
sible it is for the City of New York to once again 
get back under its own control the Battery Park, 
and you will understand what danger there is lurk- 
ing on every side to destroy the people's rights. 

Again, we wish to raise up laymen and ministers 
with the courage of their convictions, who, if needs 
be, are willing to stand in the legislative hall or in 
the council chamber, and boldly say, as did Increase 
Mather, when an iniquitous measure is likely to be 
passed, " I hope there is not a freeman in Boston 
that can be guilty of such a thing." 

This pulpit in the coming years, if it follow 
in the true line of progress, must be dedicated 
to affirmations, not negations. As in Emerson's 
day, it must affirm that God is, that he is here 
and now in our souls, that we are God's sons 
and daughters, and have within ourselves infinite 
possibilities. The gospel sounding forth from Sun- 
day to Sunday needs to be shot through with hope 
and cheer, — an immortal hope, a cheer because of 
what we can do, what we are, and what we are to 
become. Because of the message thus delivered, 
every man should leave this building with a more 
buoyant step than when he entered, and with a 
higher opinion of his own capabilities, — yes, with 
a higher, a loftier conception of his fellow-man and 
of the God-like qualities of his nature. 



1 88 THE SECOND CHURCH IN BOSTON 

Lastly, because of the feeling of fellowship that 
is thus engendered, every man and every woman 
entering our doors should feel that here earthly 
distinctions of station, wealth, culture, and official 
position are ignored, — that for a short hour, at 
least, we meet on an equal footing. 

Social fellowship, my friends, is what we are re- 
quired to emphasize. A republican form of gov- 
ernment cannot long outlast the dying out of the 
democratic spirit. Patriotism, therefore, as well as 
religion, bids us lay aside all earthly differences, 
and as a church unite in a common brotherhood 
where the sorrows of each are the sorrows of all, 
and where the joy of each may be shared by all. 

What more need I say, except to tell you that I 
believe you will thus reach forward and press on 
toward the establishment of God's kingdom in this 
city, and that you will all help to make The Second 
Church a centre of courage and cheer, a place filled 
with the sunshine of hope and Christian fellowship. 
Last week taught me how fully you are already in- 
fused with the spirit of co-operation and kindly feel- 
ing. I say it augurs well for the future of a church 
when something like three hundred people can be 
brought together, — singers, ushers, speakers, pa- 
tronesses, musicians, helpers, and assistants, all har- 
moniously uniting in a five days' celebration and 
carrying out the various exacting details without a 
single jar or feeling of rancor or jealousy. Such a 
voluntary blending of parts shows that our religion 
is something more than theory. It is exemplified 
in our every-day actions. 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 1 89 

Will it be said that I have narrowed the channel 
of progress and limited to local bounds the work 
this church ought to do? 

I grant that in certain directions I would so limit 
our efforts, but only because I am anxious that we 
gain in intensity and have singleness of aim. . . . 

Here is a light-house keeper. A certain amount 
of oil is intrusted to his care. What shall he do .'' 
Divide it so that it may be enough for many little 
flickering lights, or keep it intact in his one lamp, 
and then, courageously mounting the steps of the 
tower, place his one lamp in the focus of the lens, 
so that its light may stream forth to illuminate the 
darkness of a treacherous coast. 

To us has been intrusted this time-honored in- 
stitution, this Second Church, which, like a tower 
of strength, stands forth in the community. What 
shall we do with our power, with our light, with the 
illuminating oil ? Divide it or concentrate it } 

Let us with Saint Paul say, " This one thing I 
do." 

From our point of vantage we will flash forth our 

signals. 

God's in the heavens, 

Man is his child. 

There is a harbor of refuge. 

Courage ! 
In time it may be reached. 

Possibly some tired and disheartened mariner on 
the sea of life, seeing that signal, may take new 
courage. In the night of storm and darkness, in 
the time of trouble and sorrow, he may not know 



190 THE SECOND CHURCH IN BOSTON 

whither he is drifting, and all faith in the goodness 
of things, in the heavenly harbor, may have died 
out; but just at the moment of his worst discour- 
agement and despair, through the gloom and fog of 
his unbelief, there may stream forth our light of 
faith and cheer. That message will be understood. 
It will bring to his heart new hope, new determina- 
tion. Because of our signals he, with others, will 
once again steer in the right direction and event- 
ually reach the harbor of peace, where with the re- 
deemed he shall know the joy of those who look 
upon the face of the Father and hear the words. 
He that overcometh shall inherit all things, and I 
will be his God and he shall be my son. 



APPENDIX. 



THE Mather Chair, a picture of which forms the 
frontispiece to this volume, is believed to have be- 
longed to Cotton Mather, It stood for many years in the 
Hanover Street Church, and, while not intentionally 
included in the bill of sale of the building, remained in 
the Church on the removal of the Society. It was sub- 
sequently bought back from the purchasers of the build- 
ing by Mrs. Elizabeth Means and other Ladies of the 
Parish, and was restored to its proper place. It bears 
this inscription : — 

THIS CHAIR BELONGED TO THE 

SECOND CHURCH, BOSTON, 

DURING THE MINISTRY OF THE 

REV. COTTON MATHER, D.D., 

WHOSE PASTORATE ENDED 

FEBRUARY 13, 1728. 

The art decorations which the Society now possesses 
are here described, and the inscriptions thereon given : — 

The mosaic, Truth, erected by the wife and daughter 
of Mr. John W. Leighton, who was born in Eliot, Me., 
February 26, 1825, and died in Brookline, October 6, 
1897. A strong friend of the Church, and deeply inter- 
ested in its welfare. 

It is a glass mosaic, four by eight feet in size, and is a 
symbolic figure of Truth with sword, torch, and key. 
The tablet is set in a massive frame of bronze. This is 



192 THE SECOND CHURCH IN BOSTON 

the first figure in Tiffany favrile glass mosaic erected in 
the New England States. 
It is thus inscribed : — 

THE TRUTH SHALL MAKE YOU FREE. 

PRESENTED IN MEMORY OF 

JOHN WILLIAM LEIGHTON 

BY HIS WIFE AND DAUGHTER. 

ERECTED A.D. 1 899. 

The Ministers' Window, a memorial of Mr. George 
Henry Eager, who was born in Northboro, Mass., Novem- 
ber 18, 1833, and died in Boston, January i, 1897. Mr. 
Eager was a highly respected citizen, business man, and 
friend, and warmly attached to The Second Church. For 
many years he was a faithful member of its Standing Com- 
mittee. His interest in the church was strongly shown 
by his preparation and publication of an epitome of its 
history, which appeared in 1894. 

The Inscription on the window is as follows: — 

PROTEST OF INCREASE MATHER AGAINST THE 
SURRENDER OF THE 
COLONY CHARTER TO THE ENGLISH COMMISSIONERS 
A.D. 1683-84. 

John Mayo. John Lathrop. 

Increase Mather. Henry Ware, Jr. 

Cotton Mather. Ralph Waldo Emerson. 

Joshua Gee. Chandler Robbins. 

Samuel Mather. Robert Laird Collier. 

Samuel Checkley. Edward Augustus Horton. 
Thomas Van Ness. 

ERECTED IN THE 250TH YEAR OF THE 

FOUNDING OF THE SECOND CHURCH IN BOSTON, 

TO COMMEMORATE ITS MINISTERS, 

AND PRESENTED IN LOVING MEMORY OF 

GEORGE HENRY EAGER 

BY HIS WIFE AND DAUGHTER, 1 899. 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 1 93 

In the window, Mather is shown standing, addressing 
the commissioners who are seated at the table. In the 
costumes a strong contrast is noticed between the rich 
dress of the Englishmen and the Puritan simplicity of the 
Colonists. The upper parts of the window are filled 
with a beautifully designed canopy, in which Gothic and 
Renaissance details are intermingled in the style of the 
intermediate period. 

The Warren Window, commemorative of Mr. William 
Wilkins Warren, an honorable, upright merchant of 
Boston, a faithful member of The Second Church, a wise 
and generous benefactor of charitable organizations, a 
patron of art. He was born in West Cambridge, Mass., 
April II, 1814, and died in Boston, January 23, 1890. 

The window has for its subject on one side the story 
of St. Martin of Tours, dividing his garment with the 
naked youth ; on the other, a figure of Dorcas with two 
of the orphans whom she cherished. The artist is Mr. 
Frederick Wilson of the Tiffany studios. 

The window bears these words : — 

ST. MARTIN. 
HE THAT DOETH THE WILL OF GOD ABIDETH FOREVER. 

DORCAS. 
LOVE IS THE FULFILLING OF THE LAW. 

IN LOVING MEMORY OF 

WILLIAM WILKINS WARREN 

WHO PASSED TO THE HIGHER LIFE 

JANUARY 23, 1890. 

ERECTED BY HIS WIFE; 

The Lincoln Mural Tablet is severely, but beauti- 
fully classic in design, and is a pedestal upheld by two 



194 THE SECOND CHURCH IN BOSTON 

Corinthian pillars. It is a memorial of the Hon. Frederic 
Walker Lincoln, and bears this inscription : — 

IN MEMORIAM 

FREDERIC WALKER LINCOLN 
FEB. 27, 1817-SEPT. 13, 1898 

A FAITHFUL MEMBER OF 
THE SECOND CHURCH IN BOSTON. 

SUPERINTENDENT OF SUNDAY SCHOOL 
1846 TO 1876. 

TREASURER OF THE CHURCH AND 

CHAIRMAN OF THE STANDING COMMITTEE 

1851 TO 1895. 

DEACON 1883 TO 1898. 

THIS TABLET IS ERECTED IN 

LOVING REMEMBRANCE 
BY HIS WIFE AND CHILDREN 

He that 'followeth 

After righteousness and mercy 

Findeth life, 

Righteousness, and honor. 

The Leighton, Eager, Warren, and Lincoln memorials 
were designed and made by the Tiffany Art and Decora- 
tive Company, under the supervision of Mr. Edwin 
Stanton George. 

The Emerson Bust, made by Mr. Sidney Morse of 
Buffalo, N.Y., was given to The Second Church by the 
members of the Young People's Fraternity. It has been 
placed on a temporary support in the western transept, 
but at an early day will have an artistic pedestal, with an 
appropriate inscription. 

In addition to the works of art which were dedicated on 
the occasion of the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary it 
is fitting to mention the Tablet which was given to the 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 1 95 

Society, in 1891, by Mrs. Maria Louisa (Robbins) Davis, 
the daughter of the Rev. Chandler Robbins, D.D., who 
was installed as Minister of The Second Church in 1833, 
resigned his pastorate in 1874, and died in 1882. The 
Tablet occupies a conspicuous place at the right of the 
pulpit, and is reproduced in photogravure in this book. 

I know that 

my 

Redeemer liveth. 

IN MEMORIAM 

REV. CHANDLER ROBBINS, D.D. 

181O-1882 

THE FAITHFUL CHRISTIAN MINISTER OF 

THE SECOND CHURCH IN BOSTON FOR 41 YEARS 

1833-1874 

AND 

MARY ELIZA FROTHINGHAM 

WIFE OF 

REV. CHANDLER ROBBINS, D.D. 

182I-1870 

Blessed are the dead which die in 

the Lord; for they 

rest from their labors, and their works 

do follow them. 

A.D. i8gi. 



On the occasion of the Two Hundred and Fiftieth Anni- 
versary, the following paintings were loaned to the Soci- 
ety by the Massachusetts Historical Society, and occupied 
prominent positions on the walls of the Church : — 

Portrait of Increase Mather, who was born in Dorchester, 
June 21, 1639; Minister of this church, 1664-1723; died 
August 23, 1723. Painted by Van dek Sprjtt, 1688. 

Portrait of William Welsteed, born 1695 ; Minister of 



196 THE SECOND CHURCH IN BOSTON 

the New Brick Church, 1727-53; died January 7, 1753. 
Painted by Copley. 

Portrait of Joshua Gee, born in Boston, June 29, 1698 ; 
Colleague of Cotton Mather, 1723 ; Minister, 1728, till 
his death, May 23, 1748. Painted by Smibert. 

Portrait of Mrs. Anna Gee, wife of the Rev. Joshua 
Gee. Painted by Smibert. 

Portrait of His Excellency Thomas Hutchinson, Gov- 
ernor of the Province of Massachusetts ; born September 
9, 171 1 ; died June 3, 1780; an attendant of this Church. 
Painted by Truman, 1741. 

Portrait of John Lathrop, born May 17, 1740; Minister 
of The Second Church 1768-1816; died January 4, 1816. 
Painted by Williams, 1808. 

In addition, the Committee were indebted to the family 
of the Rev. Henry Ware, Junior, for a loan of the por- 
trait of their father. He was born in Hingham, Mass., 
April 21, 1794; was Minister of The Second Church 
1817-1830; and died at Framingham, Mass., September 
22, 1843. Painted by Frothingham. 

By the kindness of General W. W. Blackmar and 
of the Wardens of King's Chapel, the committee were 
able to display in front of the gallery of the Church 
a series of flags, namely : — that of the United States 
of the present day, together with the sea colors of 
New England in use as early as the end of the seven- 
teenth century; the British Union Jack of 1707; the Pine 
Tree flag of New England ; the Grand Union flag raised 
by Washington at the camp at Cambridge, January i, 
1776 ; other early flags of New England ; and the flag of 
New England sent by King James H. with Governor 
Andros in 1686. 



A STREET IN OLD BOSTON. 



A 



HAPPY thought of the Ladies of The Second Church 
resulted in an entertainment (preliminary to the regular 
religious celebration), which, in its way, fitly illustrated and 
expressed the secular side of Boston — its customs, manners, 
and architecture — since its foundation in 1630, and elicited 
great interest as well as much applause from the general 

public. 

This entertainment consisted in faithfully reproducing, in 
Copley Hall, many of the old buildings in Boston of the early 
Puritan, Provincial, and Revolutionary times, some of them 
famous' in story and song, and all of them quaint beyond 
expression. In fact, the large Hall was transformed into a 
veritable street, its sides lined with the semblance of houses, 
each of which was believed to represent a certain distinct 
period or style of architecture. 

In each building was an exhibit of colonial furniture, wares, 
and curiosities, with many interesting or useful articles which 
were offered for sale. The attendant ladies were dressed in a 
manner befitting the time in which they were supposed to be 
living. The various periods represented gave an opportunity 
for a variety of costumes, running all the way from the rich 
brocades of the stately dame, with powder, paint, and patches, 
to the quiet garb of the sedate Puritan maiden. 

The old street in Boston was in charge of a Committee 
called the -Auxiliary Aid" (composed of the wives of the 
present and former members of the Auxiliary Committee of 



198 THE SECOND CHURCH IN BOSTON 

gentlemen), ably seconded by the ladies whose names are 
given below in connection with the different buildings repre- 
sented. 

The musical entertainment was under the charge of Mrs. 
Charles H. Bond ; and for the presentation of the minuet by 
her little proteges the Committee were indebted to the kind- 
ness and services of Mrs. William S. Butler. 

The following buildings were represented in the historical 
festival : — 

EARLY PURITAN PERIOD, 1649-1666. 

The William Blackstone House. This is believed to have 
been the first residential building in Boston, and was situated 
on Beacon Hill, not far from the junction of the present Chest- 
nut and Walnut Streets. 

Ladies in Charge. — Mrs. Frank W. Downer, Mrs. E. T. Pratt, 
assisted by Miss Gertrude S. Sands, Miss Gertrude D. Reuter, Miss 
Clara S. Hall, Miss Helen C. Pray, Miss Mildred Williams, Miss 
Ethel McKenny, Miss Irma Bradshaw, Miss Maud H. Hunt, 
Miss Helen Johnson, Miss Margaret Miller. 

The Old North Meeting-house. — No small part of the 
early history of Boston is connected with this ancient edifice. 
The first building was begun in 1649 in Clarke's Square, or, as 
it was later known, Frissell's Square and, for the past hundred 
years, North Square. It was occupied in 1650, burned in 
1675, and replaced by the building represented in the Old 
Street in 1676. In all probability it was a fair copy of the 
ancient building. 

It was provided with bell and clock. The bell was rung at 
five o'clock in the morning, at one o'clock (the hour for closing 
the market), and at nine o'clock in the evening. The town's 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 1 99 

powder was stored here for a long time. From the very begin- 
ning this meeting-house was a stronghold of political liberty ; 
for, as is well known, the Mathers — Increase and Cotton — 
preached from its pulpit, and their influence largely moulded 
the thought and customs of the early colony. It was also from 
this pulpit that Lathrop preached his memorable sermons in 
1774. Attention was drawn to him and to his congregation by 
his patriotic utterance when, on a certain Sunday, he declared 
that " Should the British administration determine fully to exe- 
cute the laws of which we complain, we have yet to fear the 
calamities of a long civil warT 

Strong, frank, treasonable words, these ; and it is not strange 
that General Howe gave willing assent to the desire of " cer- 
tain evil-minded men of the king's party to pull down the old 
North Meeting-house." That was an end to the " nest," no 
doubt ; but the traitorous hornets came back so stingingly that 
on the seventeenth day of March, 1776, General Howe himself 
with his royal army was quite glad to say good-by to Boston. 

The Old North Meeting-house was never again rebuilt. 
The land on which it had stood was sold for i^aio in 1786 to 
the minister, the Rev. John Lathrop, who built for himself a 
fine residence there. A block of brick houses now occupies the 
ancient site. 



THE COLONIAL PERIOD, 1666-1692. 

The Mayo-Mather House.— The first regular Minister of 
The Second Church was John Mayo, who was ordained in 
November of 1655. Although he held the office of Pastor for 
nearly twenty years, yet little is now known of his personality 
and work. The records of the Church give us one item, how- 
ever, concerning his funeral, which in a few words illustrates. 



200 THE SECOND CHURCH IN BOSTON 

unintentionally perhaps, something of the customs of former 
days. It is said, "The whole cost of the Rev. John Mayo's 
funeral was ten pounds four shillings." Of this amount nearly 
four pounds were spent for wine, and five pounds fifteen shill- 
ings for gloves. It is hardly likely that Mayo himself occupied 
the house which afterward in connection with Mather bore his 
name ; nor is it probable that Increase Mather lived in this 
mansion, except, possibly, in the closing years of his life. 
After the disastrous fire of 1676, many excellent buildings 
were erected ; and it seems reasonable to suppose that the 
Mayo-Mather house was put up in the latter part of the seven- 
teenth century, when a better and more substantial type of 
architecture commenced to prevail. 

Ladies in Charge. — Mrs. James N. North, Mrs. Otis H. Luke, Mrs. 
F. F. Raymond, Mrs. Frank Hervey, Miss Bessie North, Miss 
Blanche Ware, Miss Alice Meserve, Mrs. Otis Smith. 



THE PROVINCIAL PERIOD, 1692-1775. 

The Old Feather Store, built by Thomas Stanbury in 
1680, stood on the corner of North Street and Dock Square, 
fronting upon three sides. In the early part of the eighteenth 
century it was so close to tide-water that the prows of vessels 
moored in the dock would almost touch the building. The 
architectural style was quite common in the Netherlands and 
in the old trading towns of England. The upper stories 
projected some two feet over the lower story, giving a con- 
siderable increase of space to the upper chambers. The build- 
ing was of wood, the frame being of hewn oak, and the outside 
walls of rough cement. In this cement there were imbedded 
bits of broken glass and fragments of junk bottles. The date, 
1680, was placed upon the principal gable, on the westerly 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 20I 

front. From its peculiar shape the boys in the neighborhood 
called the building " The Old Cocked Hat," and by that name 
was it popularly known for years afterward. 

Nearly every variety of trade was carried on in the building. 
The Simpsons kept here a feather store ; though before that, 
according to Snow, " the leading apothecary shop of the town 
was at ' The Old Cocked Hat,' " and was kept by the Green- 
leaf family. The old feather store was demolished in the 
year i860. 

Ladies in Charge. — Mrs. D. H. Lane, Mrs. L. G. Burnham, 
Mrs. C. H. Bond, Mrs. E. B. Stillings, Mrs. Charles A. Gleason. 

The Peter Faneuil House. — This house, a fine old stone 
mansion, stood on the Beacon Hill side (now Tremont Street), 
opposite the King's Chapel Burial Ground. The lot formed 
the south part of Governor Bellingham's estate. " The deep 
court yard," says Miss Quincy, " was ornamented by flowers 
and shrubs, and divided into an upper and lower platform 
by a high glacis, surrounded by a richly wrought iron railing. 
The edifice was of brick, painted white ; and over the entrance 
door was a semicircular balcony." It is doubtful whether 
Miss Quincy is right in her statement that the house was of 
brick, as from papers in the Massachusetts archives we learn 
that it was spoken of as being built of stone. 

The Faneuils were French Huguenots from La Rochelle. 
Peter Faneuil, the giver of the historic hall which bears his 
name, was born in 1700. He was the wealthiest Bostonian of 
his day. He lived in a style worthy of his position as a 
prince among merchants. He had five negroes to wait upon 
him, and " drove out in a coach with English horses." His 
cellar was filled with good wine, beer, Cheshire and Gloucester 
cheeses, and other tempting and palatable foods. He lived 



202 THE SECOND CHURCH IN BOSTON 

only forty-two years, dying suddenly, in 1742, of dropsy. The 
Faneuil mansion was also the home of Governor Phipps. 

Ladies in Charge. — Mrs. William M. Bunting, Mrs. Ralph Miles 
Kendall, Mrs. E. Bertram Newton, Mrs. Elmer A. Lord. 

The Benjamin Franklin House. — The old house here 
represented was a quaint specimen of an order of buildings 
common in the Provincial period. Josiah Franklin, the father 
of Benjamin Franklin, was a native of England. He became a 
respectable soap boiler and tallow chandler in Boston. Ben- 
jamin was born on January 6, 1706. His early youth was 
spent in learning how to make tallow candles for his father ; 
and "in his leisure moments," we are told, "he was engaged 
in throwing rubbish into the mill-pond." After his father's 
business became distasteful to him, he entered his brother's 
printing-office on Queen Street. In 1691 the town granted 
liberty to Josiah Franklin to erect a building near the South 
Meeting-house, and on this spot on Milk Street the renowned 
philosopher was said to have been born. Franklin himself, 
however, bore testimony to the fact that he was born on the 
corner of Union and Hanover Streets, where his father then 
carried on his business. It is doubtful whether or not the 
father of Benjamin Franklin removed from Milk Street pre- 
vious to January 6, 1706, the date of the doctor's birth. 

Ladies in Charge. — Mrs. D. W. Ensign, Mrs. Arthur Chesterton, 
Miss Sarah King, Mrs. E. P. Wilcox, Mrs. C. P. Bonney, Mrs. J. P. 
Selinger, Miss Kraus. 

REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD, 1775-1789. 

The Green Dragon Tavern. — The Green Dragon Tav- 
ern, perhaps the most famous hostelry in Massachusetts, was 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 203 

one of the first substantial brick buildings erected in Boston. 
It was located on Union Street, not far from Hanover Street. 
A stone tablet on the present business block, 80-86 Union 
Street, marks its ancient site. It was probably built not far 
from the year 1680, and was used as an inn about 1695. 

On St. George's Day, 1706, Governor Joseph Dudley, who 
had come to town guarded by the troops with their swords 
drawn, dined here in state, and then proceeded to the Town 
House. 

In 1709 the birthday of Queen Anne was celebrated by a 
*' treat" given here by the Council to the Governor, This en- 
tertainment cost the Honorable Councillors the sum of five 
shillings apiece. 

Undoubtedly, if the secret history of the Revolution were 
written, it would show that its initiatory movements were 
largely planned within this Tavern. Paul Revere tells 
us that he was one of a Committee of Thirty organized to 
watch the movements of the British. " We held our meetings 
at the Green Dragon Tavern, and swore not to reveal our 
transactions to any except Hancock, Adams, Warren, Otis, 
and Church." 

The " North End Caucus," having its headquarters at the 
Green Dragon, was most instrumental in the "tea plot." An 
old song of theirs ran as follows : — 

"Rally, Mohawks ! bring out your axes ! 
And tell King George we'll pay no taxes 

Oti his foreign tea. 
His threats are vain : he need not think 
To force our wives and girls to drink 

His vile Bohea. 
Then rally, boys, and hasten on 
To meet our chiefs at the Green Dragon." 



204 THE SECOND CHURCH IN BOSTON 

Ladies in Charge. — Mrs. Thomas Van Ness, Mrs. Renton Whid- 
den, Mrs. Quincy Kilby, Miss Helen Paine, Miss Anna Royce, Miss 
Peckham. 



The King's Head Inn. — On the north corner of Fleet 
and Ship Streets, near Scarlet's Wharf, Major Thomas Savage 
had his house and garden in the early days of the colony. 
After his death, in 1682, the King's Head Inn was located 
here. It was burned in 1691, but rebuilt of wood, and con- 
tinued a large and flourishing hostelry until the beginning of 
the Revolution, when it was converted into barracks for the 
marines, and then taken down for fuel. 

Ladies in Charge. — Mrs. William H. Alline, Mrs. Homer V. 
Snow. 

The Home of General Joseph Warren. — Dr. Joseph 
Warren, in the latter part of 1770, leased a house belonging to 
Joshua Green, which stood on Hanover Street, about opposite 
the head of Elm Street. The site is now occupied by the 
American House. Warren continued to live in Hanover Street 
until the time came when he gave his undivided attention to 
the preparation for the coming struggle with the mother 
country. As all know, he was one of the Revolution- 
ary heroes killed at the battle of Bunker Hill, 1775. The 
Warren house may be considered a type of the residential 
architecture in the years just preceding and during the Revo- 
lutionary period. 

Ladies in Charge. — Mrs. E. B. Kellogg, Mrs. E. P. Jones, Mrs. 
Viola Paine. 



TWO HUNDRED AND FIFTIETH ANNIVERSARY 205 



NEO-CLASSIC (OR EMPIRE PERIOD), 1789-1815. 

Tontine Crescent (Franklin Street). — The Tontine Cres- 
cent was the first attempt in Boston at building residences in 
blocks. The houses were arranged with skill and good taste, 
the long line of the crescent being broken in the centre by an 
archway thrown over an entering street, since called Arch 
Street, and the sky line being judiciously varied by the 
superior elevation of the centre building, the second story of 
which was used as the home of the Boston Library, now in 
Boylston Place. For many years the Massachusetts Histori- 
cal Society occupied the upper story of this building. 

Mr. Charles Bulfinch, the well-known architect, was the 
designer of the Crescent. The houses were of ample size, 
and were for half a century among the most desirable in 
Boston. The Tontine Crescent was, probably, begun some- 
where in the year 1794. The growth of the city just at that 
time was not sufficient to warrant the erection of such ex- 
pensive dwellings. Heavy mortgages, followed by forced 
sales, reduced Mr. Bulfinch almost to the verge of bankruptcy. 

Ladies in Charge. — Mrs. E. A. Grozier, the Misses Delano, 
Miss Edith Brown, Miss Blanche Stevenson, Miss Alice Daniels, 
Clarence Miller, Miss Maria Clarke, Miss Fanny Johnson. 



EARLY AMERICAN PERIOD, 1815-1859. 

The Lamb Tavern. — The present Adams House stands on 
the ground formerly occupied by the Lamb Tavern, sometimes 
styled the " White Lamb." Colonel Doty kept at the sign of 
the Lamb in 1760, though there are records of the tavern's 
existence in 1746. The Lamb was an unpretending building 



206 THE SECOND CHURCH IN BOSTON 

of two Stories, but of good repute in Old Boston. In the early 
part of this century it was conducted successively by Laban 
Adams, for whom the house was named, — father of W. T. 
Adams, " Oliver Optic," — and by A. S. Adams. The first 
stage to Providence, advertised July 20, 1767, put up at the 
sign of the Lamb. 

Ladies in Charge. — Mrs. Hatherly Foster, Mrs. Eugene G. Ware, 
Mrs. Louis R. Lincoln, Mrs. George O. Wales, Mrs. C. A. Abbott, 
Miss Mabel Mawhinney. 

On the evening of Wednesday, November 15, musical 
selections were offered by Miss Cutter's orchestra and by Mr. 
Walter S. Hawkins, soloist. During the evening of Thursday 
Ye Old Towne Choir, composed of students of the New Eng- 
land Conservatory of Music, gave solos and quartettes, with 
instrumental selections by a stringed quartette. Mr. Clarence 
Miller acted as Town-crier. This was followed by a minuet 
dance by a group of children in the style and dress of the 
Revolutionary period, under the care of Mrs. William S. Butler, 
preceded by a recital of " Grandma's Minuet," by Miss Mabel 
Patten. 

The dancers were Mabel Patten, Lillian Kaufman, Mabel 
Prince, Helen Kilmurry, Coy Prince, Fern Foster, Lillian 
Goldstein, Dora Levine. Miss Laura M. Hawkins acted as 
accompanist. 

For the use of a grand pianoforte during the rehearsals for 
the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary, and at the services 
themselves, the committee were indebted to Messrs. Chicker- 
ing & Sons of Boston. 

The general design and the details of construction of The 
Old Street in Boston were carried out by Lee L. Powers & 
Company of Boston. 




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